#why not do summin big

[jmkho]

GVF AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL WAS DEFINITELY FOR ME SINCE ILL BE BACK IN THE UK AND I KEEP BOTHERING THEM ABOUT COMING TO KOREA BEFORE I LEAVE SO I GUESS THANKS LADS. MUCH APPRECIATED.

#gvf #greta van fleet #josh gvf #josh kiszka #jake gvf #jake kiszka #sam gvf #sam kiszka #danny gvf #danny wagner #they knre they had to do summin #why not do summin big #OBVS IM.JOKING #This is fucking amazing and im so proud of them also how is everyone im so out of the loop of everything good grief

[merlucide]

Forcing Nagi to go practice

Notes: jus a lil summin, y’all pls request 😭 I feel so motivated rn

words: 314

warnings: implied fem reader

Nagi’s sprawled out on top of you, his long, toned arms wrapped around your waist and his head resting comfortably emerged your chest. 

Your fingers gently comb through his soft white hair, a soothing ritual for both of you. You’d been laying down for at least an hour- maybe more. your phone dinged, you picked it up and read the reminder,“Sei’s Practice”.

tonight’s practice is a big deal apparently, Reo had been pretty persistent about making sure your stubborn boyfriend understood that. 

“Sei” you say softly, trying to nudge him awake, “You need to get up. Reo was serious about practice tonight. No skipping.”Nagi groans, nuzzling farther into your chest. “Do I haaaaavvveeee to?” he whines. “ is’ such a hassle.”You manage to flop him off you despite his protests. He groaned, spread out on your bed as you gather his things.

He finally gets up when you threaten to not to let him over for a week, mumbling about how that’s unfair. He keeps whining as you gently push him towards the door, reminding him about how this is good for him and he needs to do something with his life other than video games. 

From your balcony, you see Reo waiting with his bike. Nagi’s still not thrilled about leaving, but you make him an offer. “If ya do your best tonight, you can stay the night, deal?” you suggest.That gets his attention. “deal” he agrees instantly. He heads down to Reo, who waves at you as they leave for practice.

You watch them go, smiling to yourself. 

Bonus: Nagi collapses onto you with a sigh, his sweat drenched jersey sticking to your skin. You yelp, pushing at his shoulders, "Get ooowaafff!! Eww you're all sweaty!! Why didn't you shower at practice?" He just whines in response, burying his face deeper into your shoulder "But I missed you"

lmao no idea if this is makes any sense but I was bored

Made April 9th 2024

#merlucide #blue lock x reader #bllk x reader #blue lock x you #bllk #nagi seishiro x reader #nagi seishiro #bluelock #nagi x reader #seishiro nagi #nagi #seishiro nagi x you #seishiro nagi x reader #nagi x you #nagi x y/n #seishiro x reader #nagi seishiro x you #seishiro #bllk scenarios #nagi scenarios #blue lock

[babygirl-diaz]

The Transfer

In which, a new transfer from Texas joins the 118.

He is a big guy with a big heart who can charm anyone with his accent. Well, anyone except one Evan Buckley. Buck and Eddie are having issues because Eddie has feelings and he told Buck about those feelings a week ago. Buck didn't know what to say so he started ignoring Eddie instead. So when the new guy barrels his way into the 118 and acts like he's always been there and is especially friendly with Eddie, Buck doesn't like it one bit. This guy just pisses him off. He absolutely hates it when the guy stands close to Eddie or god forbid slings his arm around Eddie's shoulder. Eddie doesn't hang out with Buck anymore and that might just be Buck's fault. But he knows Eddie hangs out with the new guy. Every morning, they talk about the game they watched, the video games they played, or the new dish the new guy taught Eddie how to cook. Looks like even Christopher has moved on from Buck and taken to the new guy instead. Buck sees red every time the new guy gets close to Eddie. Despite how big he was, Buck wants to snap him in half. Buck wasn't a violent guy but this man made him want to commit violent acts.

"There's something off about him," Buck tells Maddie one night as he's hanging out with her and Chimney.

"Like what? He seems perfectly normal to me," Chimney replies. "He might a little too friendly-"

"So you noticed it too, right?!" Buck practically jumps out of his seat. "He's way too friendly with Eddie."

"Eddie?" Chimney asks as he stops stirring the soup. "Where did Eddie come into this?"

"Oh, Eddie is part of Buck's very conversation," Maddie replies taking a sip of her wine.

"Right," Chimney says suspiciously but leaves it at that. "So what if he's friendly with Eddie? They have a lot in common. They both served, they are both single dads, and they're both from Texas."

Buck's heart drops when Chimney puts it like that. Because yeah, they do have a lot in common.

Buck spends the next few days trying to talk to Eddie but now he's the one actively ignoring him.

Buck once manages to corner Eddie at the station but the new guy pops out of nowhere and interrupts them.

Then Buck finds out something that breaks his heart into a million little pieces.

"What do you mean they're going out on a date tonight?" Buck's voice goes high when he overhears Chimney. He's about to leave the station when he finds Chim and Hen drinking coffee and gossiping.

"It's a bad habit to eavesdrop, Evan," Chimney chastises him playfully before adding, "But to answer your question, yes, the new guy and Eddie are going on a date tonight. I heard him ask Eddie earlier. They're going to the sports bar near Eddie's place."

That was their place. His and Eddie's. Buck wonders sadly. But nope. That was the last straw. He couldn't let the new guy steal Eddie away from him more than he already had.

He hears Chimney and Hen calling him as he runs out of the fire station like his ass was on fire. The irony in that. He gets into his jeep and drives to the bar at record speed, probably breaking a few traffic laws along the way.

He goes directly to the sports bar, still dressed in his LAFD uniform, and looks around for Eddie. When he finds them at the other end of the bar, he stomps his way over to them, clearly surprising both of them.

Eddie looks nice. He's dressed in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbow along with the tightest pair of black jeans Buck has ever seen. He looks beautiful.

"Buck, what are you doing here?" Eddie asks

"Buckaroo, did you forget your way home or summin'?" The new guy teases him instead.

Buck grits his teeth but turns his attention to Eddie. "We need to talk."

"I have nothing to say to you," Eddie tells him. "Now please leave."

Buck tries not to pout at that. "You can't date him!" He blurts out.

Both Eddie and the new guy look confused. But then Eddie says, "Why not? I can date whoever I want."

"And he clearly wants me." The new guy reaches out and tries to take Eddie's hand but Buck stops him before he can. He shoves the new guy's hand away and glares at him before turning his gaze on Eddie instead.

"Edd-"

"Just go away, Buck. You've made it clear that you don't want anything to do with me. So stop creating a scene."

"Okay," Buck sighs. "You know what?"

Before Eddie can say anything else, Buck picks him up from the stool and throws him over his shoulder like a caveman, and carries him out. Buck can hear cheers and wolf whistles behind them but he doesn't care. He places a squirming Eddie down on the ground next to his jeep and pins him against it. "You can't date him," he says again in a low voice.

"Why not? And why does it matter to you, who I date?" Eddie asks pushing Buck away. "I told you how I felt about you but you didn't even have the decency to let me down. You just started ignoring me."

"Eddie, I'm sorry," Buck tries to get closer to him again but Eddie puts his hand up to stop him.

"Decide what you want, Buck, then come back to me," with that Eddie turns around to go back to the bar.

"I love you, Eddie! I love you and that's why I don't want you to date, the new guy."

Eddie turns around to face Buck and shakes his head. "It always has to be about you, doesn't it?"

"Ed-"

"No, Buck, I am done. Just done with you." Eddie puts his hand on his hips and shakes his head. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back a friend who actually needs me."

"Friend?" Buck asks.

"Yes, friend. He is about to lose his kid and I am trying to take his mind off that and give him a good night."

"So this isn't a date?" Buck asks carefully.

"No, and I don't know where you got that from." This time Eddie does go back inside, leaving Buck out in the warm L.A. night.

"You told me they were dating!" Buck practically yells through the phone when calls Chimney.

"Did I?" Chimney asks coyly like he couldn't remember a thing. "Oh, right, they're just friends. I might have been thinking of someone else."

"I hate you," Buck grumbles.

"Love you too, Buck. Goodnight."

Buck just stands lamely there, after the phone goes dead and sighs. So good news, Eddie wasn't dating the new guy. Bad news, Eddie was pissed at him. He could work with that.

#this was supposed to be a headcanon but it turned into a fic #whoops #Buddie #Evan Buckley #Eddie Diaz #911 fox #fic #headcanon

[theratsareinspace]

Cigar Smoke and Metal-Karl Heisenberg x Reader

Check out the Masterlist for the complete fic!

Chapter 4

The days passed by uneventfully. You woke up, cooked his breakfast, did laundry, cooked his lunch, cleaned, cooked his dinner, swept, and went to bed. In that order. Every day. You learned that the Veiled woman had given you the clothes and extra furnishings in your room, and that her name was Donna Beneviento, the dollmaker lord of the village. Though she hated the factory, she pushed past her inhibitions to visit you as often as she could. She would bring fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as furniture she didn’t need that you used to spruce up your living space. You often enjoyed each other’s company in an abandoned room with a large skylight, which you dubbed the sun-room. After bringing in a small table, rug, and some chairs, it almost felt cozy. Heisenberg never came up there, making it a perfect spot for tea on Donna’s better days.

“Alcina is still angry that you were given to Heisenberg instead of her. She has brought it up at every meeting since your arrival.” Donna remarked as she lifted her veil to sip her tea.

“… Alcina? Is that the big vampire lady?”

“Yes. Many of the mortals who stumble across the village are sent to her, if not to Moreau for Cadou experiments.”

“Is Moreau the fish guy? Heisenberg won’t tell me anything about the other Lords. Or Miranda.”

“It is better that way. Our family is quite confusing.”

Angie, who had been still up until then, nodded vigorously. “That ugly freak is Moreau!”

“He seems… interesting. Do you think Heisenberg would let me go down to the reservoir for a visit?”

Angie laughed.

“No, I’m afraid not. Heisenberg hates all the other lords except myself. He… mildly tolerates me. I wish he were half as fond of me as he is of you.” Donna sighed.

You laughed. “I’m his maid. He isn’t fond of me.”

“He would have used you for one of his Soldats if he didn’t like you in some form.”

“… soldat?”

“His creations.”

“Oh.” You sipped your tea, not quite sure what to think.

An all-too-familiar clank alerted you to Heisenberg’s presence in the room. “Are you distracting my little maid from her duties, Donna?” He asked, leaning on his hammer.

“She’s a human! She can’t work all the time, Karl.” Angie said, running away from Donna’s side to annoy Heisenberg.

“Oh please. Let’s wrap this tea party up, I got a job for you, Buttercup.”

Even though you’d been living in the factory for weeks, he’d never called you by your actual name.

“Why do you carry around that big hammer all the time, huh? Do you use it to crush your enemies? Can I hold it?” Angie danced around him excitedly.

“Why haven’t you learned to shut your trap?” Heisenberg snapped at Angie, who blew a raspberry back at him and went back to Donna.

Once you had helped Donna pack her tea set away, you went to the kitchen to see what Heisenberg wanted you to do.

“Come with me.” He motioned for you to follow him down the hallway and into the elevator.

“… your first name is Karl?” You asked as he pressed a button.

“Yes it is, sweetie pie. Use it if you want. I don’t care.”

“Why don’t you like Angie and Donna? They’re very nice… if you get past the creepy doll stuff and all that.”

“I saved you from the nervige Dame so you could work for me. Not have tea parties.”

“All work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy, you know.”

“Since when are you so talkative?” He snapped, making you flinch.

You looked down at your boots and kept quiet for the rest of the descent.

As soon as you arrived at the ground floor, Heisenberg pulled you out of the elevator and into another room. Inside were destroyed targets and scrap metal.

“Fix my targets and put all the metal into buckets. I have a surprise for you when you’re done.”

You internally groaned as you watched him get back into the elevator and go back to whatever he was doing.

“I am tired of cleaning up after this slob of a man. Who does he think he is, anyway? He gets a maid, so he thinks he doesn’t have to clean up at all anymore? Honestly!” You ranted aloud. “I don’t even have any music to work to. Just machinery. I just… I want to go home… or at least fix my phone so I can have some contact with the outside world… I’m going crazy. I’m talking to an empty room. This factory is driving me crazy.”

As you angrily dumped scrap metal into a bucket, soft music began to play from the loudspeakers you thought were obsolete. You didn’t recognize the tune, but it was uplifting. It made you feel better.

Was he… listening?

You continued to clean at a faster pace, and the music continued to play. Repairing the targets proved to be a challenge. As you tried to figure out how to piece them back together, the idea of Heisenberg listening to your empty ramblings crossed your mind. Has he heard everything? If he had, that wouldn’t prove too good for you. Especially in your first week, you’d said some not-so-nice things about him. And his stupid hammer.

You fit the target pieces together, and you noticed it was painted with Miranda’s image. Odd. Maybe he took them from some villager. They did have a weird obsession with her. Standing back to marvel at your work, you ran straight into Heisenberg.

“Oop, I didn’t hear you come in… sorry…” you turned around, looking sheepish.

He pulled you into the elevator. “Fixed your phone. It’ll play any music you want ‘long as you’re in the factory. And a wireless headset. So you won’t annoy me.” He passed you your fixed phone and a headset. “I disabled calls and messaging. Nothing works except music. Don’t try it.” He pressed a button to go back to the top floor.

You smiled, your first real smile in ages. “Thank you, Heisenberg… er, Karl. And… if you’ve been hearing my rants… I’m sorry. I didn’t know… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“I’m sorry…”

“I said don’t mention it. Go do some cleaning crap.” The elevator doors opened. “I’ll be back for dinner.” He said in an angry tone, sauntering away.

You sighed. Had your rants really affected him that much? You decided to do something nice to indirectly apologize. The other night, when you had made strawberry Jello, he seemed to have liked it more than anything else you made. You decided to make him a large portion, with real strawberries suspended in the Jello-y goodness and whipped cream. You put the finished desert in the fridge and began dinner prep.

When he came down for dinner, Heisenberg was surprised. You prepared a whole spread— mashed potatoes, mac n’ cheese, carrots and dip— basically every food you had made which he somewhat enjoyed.

“What’s this for?” He asked, setting his hammer down by the door.

“You saved me from death by vampire. I haven’t been grateful. So, this is my thank you. I might have gotten carried away with the cooking… but that means leftovers for you.”

He cracked a smile. “Thanks, sugarplum.” After the feast, he didn’t leave to go back to work like he usually did. “I don’t feel like working after all that… wanna watch a movie or summin?”

“You watch movies?”

“Of course I do. Unlike the rest of the freaks that live here, I am cultured.” You followed him to a room with a tv. Of course, he picked the movie: The Conjuring.

One thing you had never told him: you hated horror movies. With a passion. Cliche girl stereotype, yes, but psychological horror was no laughing matter. You took the tattered blanket on the couch, hoping to fall asleep before the scary parts started.

Karl looked over at you. “What’s the matter? Afraid of a little movie?”

“No.” You tried to defend your character. “I’m cold.” You knew now that you had to watch it. Every jumpscare made you jump, which made him laugh and tease you about being a ‘fraidy-cat’. You unintentionally scooted closer to him until your shoulders were touching; neither of you noticed until you grabbed his arm after a particularly harsh jumpscare. He looked down at you and raised an eyebrow, but otherwise didn’t react. You didn’t notice; you were terrified. As the credits rolled, he turned to look at you. “You enjoy that, sugar?”

“Yeah. Mhm. Um…” you noticed you were still holding his arm. “Sorry. Um…”

Seeing how flustered you were made Heisenberg smirk. “Something the matter?”

“Nope. I gotta… go to bed now, long day, you know how it is… goodnight.” You charged out of the room as fast as your feet would take you.

Heisenberg chuckled to himself as he lit a cigar, thinking how adorable you looked when you were scared.

#Karl Heisenberg #Karl Heisenberg x Reader #House Heisenberg #Karl Heisenburg #Resident Evil viii #Resident Evil Village #Donna Beneviento #Salvatore Moreau #Mother Miranda #Alcina Dimitrescu #Heisenberg #Heisenburg

[wildenessat221b]

So if I wanted to request a lil fluff about Cap? Maybe Ally and the ghosts decide to very kindly and gently ask him if he's gay, let him know it's okay? Maybe he gets on the stuttery defensive and goes to live with the plague ghosts? Maybe he gives them the old "you wont believe what they said about me?" And they kind of talk him through why it might not be all that ridiculous. And he has to have a Big Think. Maybe?

Such Could Be Arranged

What was she fussing about?

Why was she fussing into her morning Coco Pops and fussing as she scooped a clump of leaves out of the drain and fussing as she turned on Richard Osman’s House of Games for Robin and fussing as she tossed and turned into the early hours.

Stop fussing, she told herself, stop fussing.

He’s fine, Alison, he’s completely fine, well he’s not, he’s dead, but he’s as fine as any of them ever are, he’s fine he’s -

Scared.

He’s scared.

He’s scared, not in the way of being scared of monsters or scared of plane crashes or scared of the dark. He’s scared in the way of feeling a new ache in your lower back, of realising you’ve forgotten a loved one’s name, in the way of having a dark and unforgivable thought in the middle of the night.

He’s scared of himself, and being dead but still very much alive, he’s stuck with himself.

That simply won’t do.

Alison knew that fear, had seen it turn people inside out, leave them choking and gasping on words they just can’t get out.

Words that they wish they could bury with a limpet mine and watch discintegrate forty feet in the air.

It simply won’t do.

She needs to talk to Pat.

***

“Does he...” her hands are wringing around each other, “You know... know?”

Pat sighs and pushes his glasses up his nose.

“...I don’t know, Alison.”

“Does... does he even know it’s... an option? Does he -“

“It’s not really about whether it’s an option or not is it, he can’t exactly hot foot it to the local drag bar.”

“There’s a local -“ she blinks and flaps her hands. “Not the point, although one we shall return to. No, I guess you’re right. But does he...“

She trails off, and gives Pat a rather helpless look.

“I think he... I think he knows what he likes. But I don’t think he knows quite what that means.”

She purses her lips and perches on the edge of the kitchen table.

“So you think he doesn’t know... that it’s alright? That he’s alright? You know... fundamentally... as a human being?”

Pat considers this. He considers it, and becomes a little sad.

“...no. I don’t think he does.”

“...hm.”

“I also think that he thinks he’s being wonderfully subtle so -“

“Utmost delicacy?”

“Utmost delicacy.”

***

“Captain?”

He looks up, from where he had been squinting accusatorily at a flock of pigeons on the front lawn.

“Hmm?”

Alison wanders nonchalantly towards him. “I’ve been thinking...”

“Hmm? Yes, me too, I’ve been thinking about you and Michael, you know you really should consider introducing more protein into your diet, now there’s this wonderful chap called Mo Farah, he appears on the television sometimes -“

“Yeah, quorn nuggets all round, excellent idea Captain, Captain - it’s alright, you know.”

She claps her hand over her mouth the moment she says it. And then she lets it drop.

“It’s alright,” she whispers, “It’s fine. You’re fine.”

The Captain frowns.

“I’m... I don’t follow.”

Alison gulps.

“It’s fine that... you like Mo Farah and George Clarke and that bloke Adam and... men. It’s fine that you like men. You don’t need to... it’s fine.”

The Captain blinks. Lines appear on his brow. Bile rises up in his throat. His knuckles whiten on his swagger stick. He feels faint, he feels hot, he loses control of the words that are coming out of his mouth.

“Now Alison that is highly - highly impertinent and highly - highly rude and very... in fact I think you should... take a look at - at yourself and... check... check yourself and your words before you try to -“

He backs out of the room as he talks.

“You need to... you should... ah...”

“Captain don’t -“

“Hyah.”

He disappears through the wall.

***

“Ooh, ello, who’s this then!”

“A visitation, how exciting!”

“To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Aw, looking a bit peaky darlin’, d’you need some milk or summin?”

“He’s dead, Mick.”

The Captain shakes his head vigorously.

“I’m quite well, just... wronged.”

Walter frowns.

“Wronged, mate?”

“Wronged indeed. Alison had the impertinence to...” he gulps. “To insinuate that I’m... attracted. To men.”

For once, in the basement, all is silent.

Only for a beat though.

“Well... you are, aren’t you?”

The Captain scoffs. His mouth forms about seven distinct shapes before it gets anything close to a word out.

“Well I... for the love of... what makes you -“

“I’ve talked to you about twice mate, rather rude considering you’ve been knocking about for getting on eight decades now, but that’s a conversation for another time - and I can see that.”

“... how... what?”

“Vibes, mate.”

“What on Earth does -“

“Anyway, that’s not what’s important here, you are, aren’t you?”

“Well...” he says what he says next very quietly indeed “yes. But it’s not something you say.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because -“

Yes he thought, an entirely new thought, a novel and sparkling and frightening thought. Why on Earth not?

He thought of Havers’ face and Havers’ voice and how he never said I love you.

Why on Earth not?

#bbc ghosts #ghosts #the captain

[whoreshijima]

Congratulations on 250 followers!!! I’m so happy and excited for you!! 🎉 I know you’re blog is going to keep growing too!!

Can I request Daichi and the situation is that he was dragged out on a double date and ended up being left alone with the girl he’d just met by the other couple?

Yes cindy! Of course you can! Thank you so much for following and supporting me 🥺 hugs n kisses for you bby xx (also this idea is fucking gold wow I can’t stop dreaming about this holy moly)

Suga knew Daichi was awkward and nervous on dates, so why on earth did he drag him on a double date. A blind one, at that. He nervously adjusts his tie and collar as he waits for the two girls to arrive “This is a bad idea, Suga... why me? You couldn’t have dragged along one of your teacher friends? What if she thinks I’m ugly? or worse, what if she doesn’t like police officers?” He groans and rubs his face. “You’re over thinking Daichi, shut up” Suga only teases, offering a warm smile to calm him down. 

A few minutes after you arrive, wandering over to the table and giving both Suga and Daichi a wide smile. “Y/N, this is Daichi. Daichi, this is Y/N” Suga introduces you both, smiling when he sees you both staring at each other. You both seat yourselves and order some drinks, Suga and his date are chatting away for majority of the date. Conversation flows easily between you and the suited man sat opposite you, talking about work and hobbies, Daichi’s past victories in Volleyball and how he was captain. The man was very impressive to you, flashing you cheesy grins here and there. Before you realise you are both caught up in a heated debate about whether cocktails are worth the money or not. Looking up, you’ve realised the other couple have disappeared from sight. You both burst into laughter and look at each other. 

“You know, I don’t normally do something so formal for a first date... too much pressure” you giggle out, playing with your napkin “I normally suggest ice cream and a walk” He cocks an eyebrow at the date idea, leaning forward across the table to be closer to you. Your eyes meet as he talks to you “I know an ice cream place. Lets go. It’s a five minute walk, cmon” he stands, offering his hand to help you stand. “Such a gentleman” you tease, giggling as he rolls his eyes at you, walking into the cool streets of the city. Strolling down the streets and alleys felt safe with Daichi by your side. Not only was he a police officer but he was a large one at that. He towered over you, his big broad chest would smother you if you were to be surrounded by it, you’re sure of it. You reach the ice cream place eventually, ordering your flavours and wandering around. “I’m sorry but theres no way that you really believe mint choc chip is the best flavour! It’s definitely chocolate fudge brownie!” He’s laughing, chest rumbling, eye watering laughing. He looks pretty, handsome, stunning. Any positive words to describe someone, you could apply to Daichi. The gentle glow of the moon and street lamps casting pretty highlights and shadows onto Daichi’s face. 

Shivering slightly, you decide to call it a night, you had a blast wandering around the city with him, laughing and talking about anything and everything in between. “Please let me walk you home Y/N...” he smiles, shrugging his jacket off and wrapping it around your shoulders. As if you were in synchronisation, you both blushed and giggled. Sliding his hand into yours, you walk in the direction of your house, hands swinging gently in the night. Reaching your door you exchange numbers and chat a little more. Shrugging off his jacket, you go to hand it back to him “no.. keep it. It gives me an excuse to see you again” he chuckles, leaning across to kiss your cheek gently, waving as he wanders off. 30 seconds later you receive a text “Can I see you tomorrow?” 

I hope you enjoyed! It wasn’t quite how I wanted it to turn out but it’s still kinda cute :)) he’s such a gentleman 🥺

SEND ME A CHARACTER, A SITUATION AND IF YOU WANT IT NSFW OR SFW AND ILL WRITE YOU A LIL SUMMIN

#haikyuu #daichi #hq #daichi sawamura #haikyuu!! #daichi sawamura x reader #daichi x reader #daichi x y/n #daddy daichi #daichi fluff #handsome man #love you #my boy dai 🤍

[baeklination]

bartender love pt.3

Date:210611

Warnings: ANGST, mental health (unnamed) , unease about sex (not very detailed or long), g.e.l.

Pairing: Kyungsoo x F.Reader

WC: 6,2k

NOTE: I know... But, save for a 1 week break, I'm gonna try to stick with this one.

pt.1 pt.2 Masterlist

¤¤

Going on three months you and Kyungsoo still had as much fervor for one another as in the beginning, only now it was cemented by a comfortable knowing of each other; you knew it could take him hours to reply to a text, but it’d be something sweet when he did; he knew you could seem a bit blasé when he asked you to come over, but you’d be as happy about seeing him as ever. There had really only been one thing that had bothered you (save his underwhelming cooking skills). You’d told yourself that it wasn’t a big deal, yet it kept playing in your mind, that time, a few days ago when he woke you up in the middle of the night:

You woke up by him kissing your shoulder and stroking your breasts, waist and legs. Sluggishly turning around, he was on top of you just as you opened your eyes, continuing with the kisses.

“Shit, Kyung, slow down, I’m not even awake yet”, you said, not minding his actions, but rather his pace.

“You’re plenty awake, Y/N”, he said excitedly, making you chuckle. “You’re not wet yet.”

You weren’t a stranger to the saliva solution, but up until now it’d been reserved for the quickies - the bathroom at a party, a dark alley, the laundry room - so for him to spit in his hand and use it as lube instead of waiting caught you off guard.

“I’ve been awake for an hour thinking about fucking you”, he breathed in your ear as he pressed himself in. “Shh, shh, relax…”, he prompted when he felt how tense you were.

“I haven’t been up an hour, Kyung…”

“You’re right, sorry”, he said and pulled out a bit. “I have to be careful with my precious baby.”

“What..?”

“Well you are...”, he cooed, while kissing you “...my baby.”

“I’m not a baby.”

“Oh, really...?”

He started moving his hips slowly, feeling much less resistance than before.

“Then why do you like it so much?”

The sex was great, per usual, but how it started out had left you feeling...something. You hadn’t even told Iseul about it. If it happened again you would. But since then he’d been the same cute and caring guy you’d come to know him as. Sitting at the end of the bar, waiting for his shift to end you smiled to yourself at the girls batting their eyelashes at him “Damn, you having a seizure or summin’?”

Your phone buzzed - there was a text message from him: “Can I kiss you in 5 seconds?” You looked up to see him counting down with his fingers, taking big steps towards you. When he reached zero you nodded.

“You may.”

He held up a menu, blocking the view to the rest of the room:

“Privacy screen”, he smiled before pressing those plush lips against yours.

¤

Walking home together, there was a chill in the air not usual for this time of year, and seeing you shiver Kyungsoo put his jacket over your shoulders.

"Did you see that in a movie and think that's a great move, gotta try it?", you teased him, laughing all the while.

"What! I was being a gentleman..!"

"Alright…", you held your hands up in defeat. "I guess there's a first time for everything."

"You're such a..!", he exclaimed, pulling you in by your shoulder and giving you a kiss on the head.

There are two things - opposites really - you love about being as close with Kyungsoo as you are. One is being able to have hour-long conversations about miscellaneous issues, like narwhals and the making of milk cartons; the other is being silent, like now.

If you could only choose one, holding hands would win, but having your arm around his waist, your hand just under his t-shirt to feel his warm skin isn't bad either.

"Hey, do you think I could walk the whole way there?", he asked, pointing his finger when you came to the bridge.

"What, the railing?"

"Mm-hm."

"Technically… If you're not afraid of heights."

"I'm not. So you think I can?"

"Can? No, I don't think you can, 'cus only an idiot would try to."

"Am I?", he asked with a mischievous smile that made your throat tight.

"Stop it, Kyung."

"Wanna bet? Ten bucks says I can."

"Are you serious? No. No, I don't wanna bet, I wanna cross the bridge on the ground like normal people."

"Guess I'm not normal then", he said and jogged to the railing.

"Jesus Christ, can you just stop fucking around..."

You were sure he was yanking your chain, but when he started heaving himself up on the ledge you realised he was going to try.

"Ta-da..!", he said triumphantly, stretching his arms out. "It's barely five metres down, I wouldn't die if I fell in."

His stupidity didn't just scare you - it angered you - but you didn't want to shout at him while he was up there.

"It's not the fall that kills you, it's the undercurrent."

"I guess that's what it'll say on my tombstone", he laughed as he started walking. "It was the undercurrent…"

"Can you just get down?", you pleaded, feeling a burning behind your eyes. "Please. You're scaring me, Kyung. Kyung!"

When he didn't say anything is when you'd had enough.

"Fine! I guess you are a fucking idiot", you hissed, picking up the pace to leave him behind. "Here's your fucking jacket", you continued, throwing it on the ground.

"Come on, Y/N..!", Kyungsoo chuckled. "You're cute when you're mad."

His whole demeanour baffled you. He'd always had a carefree up-for-anything attitude to things, but he was never outright stupid. And the fact that he wouldn't come down when you asked when his soft nature had always been his strongest trait… There was a clank followed by a yelp from Kyungsoo - your stomach turned to a vacuum, heart in your throat, as you spun around, ready to hear the splash of him hitting the water.

But there he sat, swinging his legs on either side of the railing. He burst out laughing.

"You should see your face..!" He jumped down and clapped his hands, still laughing. "You thought I went over, right..!"

Still reeling from the shock of thinking he had fallen, his mockery sent you into a rage - now you had half a mind to shove Kyungsoo off the goddamn ledge yourself.

"What the fuck's wrong with you?!", you screamed at the top of your lungs, barely recognizing your own voice.

"Jeez, calm down, babe", he snorted and put his arms up to pull you in.

"Fucking idiot", you spat at him and shoved him in the chest.

"Stop being such a rabbit”, he frowned and tried again. “I-”

“Don’t fucking touch me”, you warned him and swatted his hand away.

“Jeez... Okay, I’m sorry, alright? Let’s just go home. I bet you’ll forget all about it once we’re in bed...”

You were flabbergasted.

“Yeah, well that’s another dumb bet you’ll loose. You’re not coming with me.”

“Come on, Y/N-”

“Leave it.”

He looked at you for a moment then lifted his hands in defeat.

“Alright…” When he turned to get his jacket he chuckled. “Fucking downer…”

¤

You didn’t want to talk to Kyungsoo during the following two days. Ironically though, not hearing from him had stressed you out all the more. Going from is he angry with me now to what if he went up on the railing again and fell? You didn’t believe any of those things, but it didn’t stop them from picking away at your mind. That you hadn’t spoken to Iseul about it probably hadn’t helped - this is exactly the type of situation one needs friend therapy for. You didn’t want to admit it to yourself, but you were embarrassed, without even knowing what about; it’s not as if she thought he was perfect - or better yet - that everyday of her relationship with Tony had been a Hallmark card. Was it because you had gone on and on and on about him only to now think that maybe you don’t know Kyungsoo that well at all? Whatever it was you trusted she’d sort it out for you as you poured her a glass.

“Damn, white wine… What happened?”

“Aeh...nothing”, you sighed and grimaced.

“Sceptical Iseul is not convinced…”

“Of course she isn’t. I don’t wanna have to tell you - but I want you to know...”

“Kyung..?”

“Yeah”, you nodded and frowned. “Fuck it.”

So you told her what had happened on the bridge, start to finish, not trying to make yourself out as having been sweet and sensible; if anything, you sugarcoated Kyungsoo’s behaviour, so she wouldn’t hold it against him in the future.

Iseul pursed her lips and knitted her brows.

"Hm… Is it that bad, though?"

"Agh..! You don't think so?"

"He was an idiot, for sure, and I get why you're angry, but I thought you were gonna tell me something major. You know how guys, not even guys - people - are. Out of the blue they do some weird shit", she said, shrugging her shoulders. "Or are you seriously thinking of ending it over this..?"

You had a knot in your stomach. You knew you had to tell her about when he'd woken you up.

"No. But I'm worried it might be a part of something else, his true self or something …", you sighed, making byunny ears. "The other night. He…" You paused, trying to find a segway in. "I don't know, he…"

Iseul's eyes narrowed as she leaned slightly forward.

"Did something...", you said, fidgeting with the seam of your trousers.

She put her glass down and looked you dead in the eye, her chest rising high with nervousness.

"What do you mean "he did something"?"

"Listen. I didn't think it was a big deal when it happened, so I didn't tell him."

"Okay…"

"I mean, it's not like I brought it up to him and he's had a chance to explain himself - it. It's been sitting uneasily on my mind, is all, alright?"

"You're making me uneasy. Just tell me."

If you said it out loud it would be fact and real, instead of your bothersome secret.

"Agh! Okay", you sighed loudly. "He woke me up the other night, last week, wanted to have sex. But you know how you are when you wake up like that, you need a minute to understand that you're even up, right? And if your head needs a minute…", you trailed off, raising your brows demonstratively.

"Your body needs two", Iseul filled in. "Yeah, course."

"But he didn't...care? He just spat and tried to do it anyway-"

"Wait", she said, and went still. "Are you telling me that he-"

"No. NO", you said sternly, grabbing her wrists. "NOT THAT. I swear. God, Jesus, the saints, it wasn't like that, Is. It was just...", you shook your head, yourself still not being able to put words nor feelings to it properly. “It was…”

“Not right..?”

“Yeah. It was just not right. But he didn’t like...force it, when I told him to slow down. It was normal after that, so I don’t know… Do you get why I’m- no wait. He called me baby.”

“He always says that to you, doesn’t he?”

“No, it was more like that.”

“Like daddy baby?”

“Yeah. He’s never done that. Maybe he’s wanted to, but didn’t know how to ask, but with the whole thing and now this...fucking bridge thing…”

“I think you should talk to him about it, all of it. What? What’s with the face?”

“I thought you were gonna fly off the handles when I told you. You know how nervous I’ve been..!”

“Few years ago I prolly would have…”, she smiled, and took her first sip in a long time.

“Ah, Tony calmed you down?”

“More like Tony taught me people are allowed some fuck-ups… Not just him, me too. Things can snowball so fast. If we hadn’t started talking - or listening - we wouldn’t have made it. ‘Cus...you don’t wanna break up- wait! You’re not officially a couple are you..!”

“No, we're not, Mrs Tony. And no, I don’t.”

“Well, then it’s simple, if not easy. There might be something going on with him that he’s not saying, you know. If you manage to get your foot in the door maybe he’ll let you in, hun.”

“Ah..! Now you made me wanna call him now, forgive and have sunsets and roses..!”, you wailed.

“Fuck that. He apologizes first, you hear?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be angry again in an hour. Thanks.”

“Before we go all sunset… If you ever feel not comfortable with sex, don’t do it.”

“I know.”

“No, I’m serious. Trying new things, you do for him, he does for you, sure. But never do it so he won’t be in a pissy mood, or whatever. That shit will fuck with your selfworth so bad you don’t even know...“

“Mm… I guess I just don’t know how to broach the subject…”

“Do you trust him? Apart from being mad at the moment?”

“Yeah. Yes.”

“Then start with some Dr. Phil shit “Kyungsoo, I trust and lo-”. Iseul stopped mid-sentence and looked at you with glittering eyes. “Do you love him?”

“Go on with your Dr. Phil.”

“Do you? Come on, you do..!”

“Go. On”, you said, trying to be stern, but breaking into a smile.

“Kyungsoo, I trust and may love-”

“Oh, shut up, Is..!”, you hollered. “See, this is why I always regret telling you things…”

“You didn’t even tell me anything”, Iseul affirmed innocently, putting her hands up.

“Yaic… Give me the damn bottle, and let’s talk about something else.”

“Cheers to that. Let’s leave anger behind. Let’s talk about…”, she giggled, and you knew precisely what was coming “...loooove.”

Iseul was your best friend in everything.

¤

Another two days passed and as predicted, your anger came back. As you lay down to sleep after your shift, the day just getting started with a pale blue on the horizon, you continued the three-stop circle you'd been on for a few hours: blazing irritation, want, anxiousness. You grabbed your phone and open the inbox to read the text for the umpteenth time:

"I MISS YOU! COME DOWN, I'M WORKING!"

Your heart had skipped a few beats when you read the first part, but went stone cold when you read the rest. Or rather; when you didn't read what you should have - an apology. Incensed is the perfect way to put it, and of course you hadn't done yourself any favours by going over it again and again, in a sense deciding what Kyungsoo was thinking (that there was nothing to apologise for) instead of sticking with the facts (he said he misses you and wants to see you). That part is what had you feeling restless, thinking maybe you shouldn't have ignored him; even seeing his missed call you could've texted him to let him know you were at work. But then again, why should you? Why should you come running as soon as he snaps his fingers - especially after all this time without a beep from him? And that's how you went until you dozed off.

You couldn’t tell how long you’d slept, but judging by the dark shadows still stretching out from the corners of your room it wasn’t very long. You looked around, ears pointed, to figure out what had awoken you.

“Y/N..!”

It was coming from outside. Throwing your covers to the side you got up and peeked out through the curtains. Sitting on the grass below your apartment was Kyungsoo.

“For fucks sake…”, you swore under your breath as you opened the window. “What!?”, you hissed.

“Y/N..!”

When he got to his feet and brushed himself off he stumbled: he was - as they say - as drunk as a skunk. As if your patience wasn’t already wearing thin he continued shouting.

“Open the door..! I miss-”

“Shh! People are trying to sleep..!”

“So let me in!”

If not for anything else than to make sure your neighbours didn’t call the cops on you, you hurried down the stairs and let him in.

The sweet smell of alcohol surrounding him nauseated you, so you kept your distance as he was kicking off his shoes in the hallway.

“Why didn’t you go home?”

“I wanted to see you. Why didn’t you come down to the bar?”

There’s no point in arguing with an intoxicated person, so you gave work as your excuse.

“I was working too, but I still made time for you”, he said like a little know-it-all, bobbing his head, squinting with one eye.

“How much did you drink, Kyung? Henki isn’t even open this late…”

“Not enough. We went to Andrew’s place.” He paused to swallow a burp. “And then I missed you, so now I’m here..!”

“Dandy… Well, I just got back, I have to sleep”, you said and went back to your bedroom.

“Does that mean no sex?”

You bit your tongue, careful not to give him the earful you so desperately wanted to.

“Mm-hm…”

“That’s okay”, he said and slumped down on the bed. “We’ll be sexless from- oh, shit!”

They way he hurried out the door you knew what was coming - literally. Luckily you heard the lid smack open before the retching. You were annoyed as hell that he’d come over, and the sounds coming from the bathroom made you cringe - but it also made you feel sorry for him, and remember what Iseul had said about patience.

“Where’s my…”, he groaned, then stopped to spit.“Where’s my toothbrush..?”

He looked so pitiful where you found him, sat grimacing on the floor.

“Are you sure you’re done?”

“Yes”, he nodded with his eyes closed. “I just wanna go to bed.”

“Here”, you said, holding out his toothbrush, pasted and ready.

His eyes had become glossy, making him look almost like a seal when he looked up at you. You sat down with him as he brushed his teeth and felt the ice thaw.

A bit more lucid, but tired and somewhat slurring his words he crawled under the covers.

"I'm so glad you're not still mad."

"I am", you sighed tiredly.

He stopped mid-motion of putting his arm around you, letting it rest on your hip instead.

"Why'd you let me in?"

"The cops..?"

"Don't be mad at me, Y/N", he whined. “Please…”

"I won't be", you replied and pulled his arm up around you.

The sweet vapors of drink still surrounded him, but the feeling of his body enveloping you one-upped them. When you're used to sleeping with someone's chest on your back, being without is like going without a safety blanket. The scolding could wait til the morning.

¤

Getting over a fight, finally seeing each other, has a way of shining the brightest light on things, making them new. As you lay listening to Kyungsoo’s breathing, his stuffy nose irregularly whistling, all traces of anger seemed to have vanished. That is not to say the issue had, but you thought the best course would be to actually talk, not berate.

When you started tracing the lettering on his back his shoulder blades pushed together as if it tickled.

“Good morning. Day”, you said and scooted closer.

To your disappointment - albeit not total surprise - he pulled the covers over his head when you put your arm around his waist. Not what you were hoping for after so many days apart.

“Did the nightly prince turn into a hungover frog?”, you snickered. “Hey”, you said in a softer voice, but you could see the silhouette of his hand moving up to his head. “I’ll get you something for your head and make some broth. You need something in your stomach.”

You’d been there a few times yourself; headache so bad you think you’ll never be able to stand on your feet again and nausea so bad you feel you never want to eat again. One fed the other, so starting off with the soup from insta-noodles was perfect - it could be downed in a few mouthfuls and it restored your salt levels. In an hour or two he’d manage to get some fruits and coffee down.

But when you went back to see if he was ready for more you found he hadn’t even finished half of it, seemingly swallowed the pills and rolled around to your side of the bed. You opened the window a bit, hoping the fresh air would make him feel better, before kneeling down by the bed. His hand was peeking out so you held it lightly.

“I put some coffee and nectarines on the table here”, you whispered. “I know you feel sick, but you’ll feel better if you eat. I’m working tonight, and going over to Is in a few hours. You can stay, but I’d worry less if you got a little better before I leave, Kyung.”

When he didn’t say anything you sighed in compassion, kissed him on the hand and let him rest.

¤

He hadn’t eaten anything before you left - nor responded to any of your texts or calls from work - so it was with pity, worry, and determination to get him to eat you opened the door. It was dark in the hallway with only a faint light coming through from the living room window. It wasn’t without some despondency, not having spent actual time with him, you flicked on the lights and looked at the floor to see if he had dropped your spare key through the mail drop like you said. Not seeing it you got a little excited - had he kept it, claimed it, as his?; did that mean you would be getting one in return next time?

When you took your shoes off, you realised that the chill you’d felt on your body and chucked down to you being tired, extended to the floor - it was freezing cold. The radiator was warm to the touch.

“Kyung…”, you sighed.

Guessing he must’ve forgotten to close the window, the thought of laying down in the iced bed made you groan as you turned the corner and braced yourself to go in. The door was closed. He can’t still be here, you frowned. The temperature drop gave you goosebumps in a second and seeing Kyungsoo did nothing to warm you up; exactly as you had left him, there he lay.

“Jesus, Kyung, it’s freezing in here”, you exclaimed, and hurried to close the window.

When you turned on the lamp on the nightstand you saw he hadn’t taken a bite or sip.

“Haven’t you be-”

You stopped dead in your tracks when you saw the look of him. He had the covers pulled up to his eyes, but you could see clear as day that he was drained; his skin had an almost greyish hue to it and his eyes were tired, zoned out.

“What’s the matter?”, you asked, putting your hand on his forehead to see if he was running a fever. He shrunk away from it and turned, making you all the more worried. “Hey…”

You tried soothing him by caressing his back, but he curled his shoulders with dislike and grunted something sounding like “no”, or maybe “don’t”. Realising it was the same thing he'd done in the morning you got worried - scared - for real, thinking this wasn't just some metaphysical hangover. What do I do? Call the emergency services? Loey. What if he doesn't want me to? Shit. Call Loey. You sat motionless, staring at his back for what seemed like an eternity. You wanted so badly to touch him, to hug him, but it obviously made him feel worse. Why… Gathering courage you went to find his trousers, feeling the pockets for his phone.

"Kyung… I'm gonna call Loey. I… Can you tell me if you don't want me to?"

Perhaps it was nothing more than a slow blink, but it could’ve been an OK.

You paced back and forth in the living room, swallowing nothing from your dry mouth, as you waited on Loey to pick up. What if he didn't think it was a big deal, or understand what you were talking about, what then?

"Radio night love with Loey, what's on your mind, caller?", he answered jovially.

"Eh, hi, Lo'. It's Y/N."

"Oo?"

"Yeah, I don't know… I think something's wrong with Kyung. He's-"

"Wrong how? Are you- where are you?" The change in his tone meant he knew what this was.

"At home, he's just lying there-"

"Okay, I'm coming."

"What should I do? He hasn't even eaten in a day."

"Don't worry, I'll be there in 20. Just let him be."

You waited for Lo' on the bedroom floor; sitting out of Kyungsoo's view so he wouldn't feel watched. Having Lo' take control of the situation made you feel both better and worse: he obviously knows what to do - which means it's likely this has happened before. And will happen again. Thinking back on the past two weeks, you see it so clearly now - so fucking clearly. Did I make it worse by fighting with him? Could I have stopped it if I'd caught- the phone rang in your hand. Finally, Loey was downstairs.

¤

"Has he been weird, hyper?", he asked, keeping you in the stairwell.

"Yeah. I thought he was just…", you throw your hands up. "Acting a little wild, having extra energy. We had a fight last week, so I hadn't seen him until last night."

The guilt of having shut him out overwhelmed you and your tears started pouring freely from your eyes. “I should’ve known something was wrong, instead of just-”

"Hey. Hey, hey…", Lo' tried to calm you down, grabbing your shoulders. "It's not your fault. If anything it’s mine, for not knowing he was lying to me...", he sighed.

“Lying..?”

“I asked him if he was off his meds last week. I should’ve fucking known he was lying, he wasn’t just in a good mood. I didn’t get back until a few hours ago so I couldn’t check either. Is he sleeping?”, he asked, and continued up the stairs.

“I don’t know…”

Off his meds?

¤

“Can I talk to him alone?”

“Mm. I’ll…”, you trailed off, but walked towards the kitchen.

“Hi buddy…”, you heard him say in his deep, low voice before closing the door.

You could hear a faint rustling of the covers and gathered Kyungsoo was at least reacting to Loey. Thank god.

You hadn’t waited very long when Loey came back out. He sighed and tried to put on a brave face.

“We’re gonna go. I’m taking him to the hospital…”

“Oh… Can’t you take him home, give him his meds?”, you asked, feeling small and dumb.

“Not with this”, he said, pointing backwards. “He knows he has to.”

“Yeah… Of course. Um…”

“We should go…”, he said awkwardly and turned around.

“Lo’… Will he get back to normal?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll call you when we’re done, okay?”

When they came out, Kyungsoo was fully dressed. The clothes that yesterday represented a very drunk and stupid Kyungsoo were now doused in helplessness. You could see that everything was heavy for him; standing up, waiting. For a split second the haze covering his eyes was lifted and they were clear as day - for a split second you saw utter despair. You pressed your body hard against the wall to stop yourself from moving, holding your arms crossed tight.

Loey looked around the hallway, lifting up your clothes.

“His jacket..?”

“He didn’t have one”, you said, remembering how cold it was.

“Here", he said, pulling off his own sweater and dressed Kyungsoo in it. "It's bad enough without you catching a cold."

Kyungsoo seemed to let Loey do what he wanted, like a child who's done crying and tiredly agrees to everything. Selfishly, you wished he'd responded to you like that instead of being uncomfortable with your touch.

"Okay, let's go", he said and opened the door. "I'll...call you later."

Through the window you could see them getting in the car; Loey's hand reaching out to put the seatbelt on Kyungsoo. As they drove off towards the paler sky you shivered and breathed out slowly. Don't cry. You heard Lo', he's gonna be fine. Blinking your tears back down you decided there wasn't much else to do than go to bed - unless you wanted to stay up and stay worried - so you washed up and went to lie down. There was a whiff of his scent whenever you moved the covers or pillow, making it impossible to banish the thoughts completely; and so you fell asleep with a ghost in your body, clutching your phone waiting for Loey's call.

You were startled awake by the heavy guitar riffs blasting in your ears.

“Yeah…”, you grunted, still drunk with sleep.

“Shit, did I wake you? It’s Lo’.”

“No”, you said, rubbing your eyes. “I mean yes. How’d it go? How is he?”

As soon as you got your bearings, the somersaults in your stomach were back at it.

“Eh, he’s...not fine, I mean, you saw him. But at least he’s sleeping now”, he sighed, worn out not just by this night’s event, but every night like this.

“Where is he?”

You were desperately hoping Loey would say he was with him at home, but it didn’t come as a surprise when he explained Kyungsoo had been admitted to the hospital and would be staying there for some unknown amount of time. Understanding you didn’t know what - or how - to say or ask, he tried his best to put your mind at ease.

“He’ll be back, Y/N. It’s like he says, just a glitch in his matrix. He’s pretty sedated now-”

“Sedated?”, you burst out. “What do you mean? He was calm when you left..?”

“No, not sedated. It’s a side effect from the drugs he takes to avoid worse ones from his real meds. He gets tired, sleeps all the time. He’ll be up in a few days.”

“Shit, you scared me", you exhaled heavily. "Are you allowed to visit him?"

"Yeah, sure. His mum will call once he's up. You want me to go with you?"

"Should I go?"

Judging by the silence on the other end of the line, Loey was surprised at your question.

"I mean, maybe he doesn't want me to come? He never told me about this. I don't want him to be embarrassed…"

"He won't be."

"Okay, maybe not embarrassed, but like he wants to tell me himself when he's ready, you know. If he knows you've already told me-"

"He's not like that", Loey interjected. "What was he gonna say? That he just had a bad hangover, come on. He'll be happy to see you."

"You sure? What if...ai, I don't know..."

"I'll ask him when I see him, alright?"

"If he says it's okay, yeah, I'll go."

"He's not gonna dump you over it. He was gonna tell you anyway."

"He was..?"

"Of course he was. You couldn't very well get hitched without him letting you know, could he?"

"Hitched? Married? Eh, I think we're a few years away from that carnival, Lo'…", you brushed it off, but couldn't help smiling to yourself.

"That's what the kids always say… All I'm saying is he's nuts about you and I know he'd like it if you came by. Unless..?"

"Uh-uh, no. If he says yes, just you try to stop me", you said energised.

"That's the spirit, Y/N..! But one more thing…"

"What?"

"What you think of my new hair?"

You could tell he was grinning, trying to lighten up the heavy mood.

"Oh, shit. You're blonde!", you shouted, suddenly realising he'd dyed his hair. "Shit, Lo'..! It looks good."

“I wasn’t sure about it myself, but one of the other roadies convinced me to try it.”

“Did this roadie happen to be a woman, Lo’..?”

He laughed and cleared his throat.

“I’m not saying she wasn’t...”

“You two…”, you sighed and felt the absence of Kyungsoo. “You okay?”

“Me? I’m tough as nails, an iron man. Honestly, if I’m not freakin’ out, you don’t have to.”

“I guess… Yeah, you’re right. Thanks. Call when you hear something?”

“No doubt. Bye.

“Bye.”

¤

A part of you wanted the elevator to malfunction so you’d be stuck between floors, unable to see him. Ever since waking up, the scales of excitement vs. nerves had slowly been shifting towards nerves and every time the digits on the monitor changed the buzzing in your body increased. You knew - or at least thought - that it was just a matter of getting the first awkward moments out of the way, but logic was apparently not applicable to this situation. You rubbed your sternum with your knuckles, hoping to relax the electrified lump you had in there, but as soon as the elevator pinged you knew it was no point, you’d simply have to walk in there, ready or not.

As soon as you came up to the desk a kind-faced nurse looked up from her seat. Reassurance.

“Hello..!”

“Hi. Eh, I’m here to visit someone..?”

“M-hm. Who?”

“Kyungsoo”, you answered, again somehow making it sound like a question.

“Hm, okay, let me see here”, she said, and fiddled with the computer in front of her. “Ah, here it is. 4 PM with Kyungsoo...and your name is…”

“Y/N.”

“Y/N. Yep, that’s right. Let me just see he’s not sleeping”, she said, getting up.

In a sudden onset of self consciousness you looked in the window of the entrance door to make sure you looked okay; straightening out your already straight shirt; fixing your hair that looked exactly the same as it had done. When the nurse came back down the hallway and nodded you almost liquified. But it didn’t last long, because peeking out from the room, there he was. After a quick scan his eyes found you and he smiled shyly, but widely. If there is ever a good sort of punch to the stomach, this was that. Like sitting outside when the clouds suddenly give way to the sun to warm your face. There was no way you looked normal walking, not with the way your wobbly legs felt they were gonna give out any moment. But if he noticed anything he didn’t remark on it as he shuffled inside to let you in. He stretched his arms out a little, but brought them back to his side, chuckling. He was as nervous as you were.

“Hi…”

You didn’t say anything, laughed a bit, and went to hug him. His embrace was as before: you could feel he was strong; the contours of his chest against your cheek, his arms reaching round your shoulders - but he was also gentle. The sweet-sticky smell had vanished, and you could smell him, warm Kyungsoo.

"Can I kiss you..?", he whispered.

You nodded, your head still against his chest, eyes closed.

"You better…"

He blew out a giggle through his nose and cupped your face as you turned towards him. Warm Kyungsoo. So soft you registered the way his lips were pushed down as he pressed them against yours, the tickle of his upper lip over yours. His tongue tasted exactly like it should. Too soon did he break the kiss to hug you tight.

"Ugh, I'm so glad you came…", he sighed. "Do you wanna sit outside? I've got a balcony."

"Ocean view?"

"You bet", he said, and took your hand to guide you. "Do you want something to drink, eat?", he asked, filling up a glass of water.

"No, I'm fine. I had a late lunch."

The balcony was barely 4 square ft., with a pair of those white plastic chairs. Looking behind, beyond the banister, there wasn't much of anything; a few trees in a pretty rundown playground, and a seemingly abandoned warehouse. He put his glass on the edge and declared:

"There..! Ocean view", as he sat down.

"Not really what I expected…"

"I'm sorry to disappoint you", he smiled.

It was meant as a joke, but it shifted the energy profoundly. There was a tug in your gut. Kyungsoo frowned, suddenly looking tired, and ran his hand through his hair which fell on his forehead now that it was without styling. He leaned forward and took your hand.

"Hey, tell me what you're thinking."

“Nothing…”

He tilted his head, not letting you get away with that answer.

“I…” You shrugged your shoulders, looking anywhere but at him. “Everything..? I jump to the next question before even figuring out what the previous question was… I’m worried - scared.”

“Of me?”

“No, for you!” You emphasized by nearly crushing his hand. “Never of you, Kyung… I don’t know what to do.”

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Fix me..?”, he chuckled despondently.

“I’m not that dumb, Kyung. It’s just…” You started gesturing widely, so he let go of your hand. “Like on tuesday. Lo’ knew exactly what to do and I just sat there without a fucking clue... I should’ve called him sooner - I should’ve known something was up..!”

“Hey, hey. You can’t think like that”, he said in an effort to calm you down. He put his hands on your knees and looked at you, his brows knitted, upset you’d even consider blaming yourself. It worked. You lowered your voice and finally looked at him.

“I just…wish I’d done something.”

“Listen to me. Don’t just nod your head, Y/N. Listen, okay?”

“Mm”, you said, nodding again as you felt a lump in your throat.

“Whatever you think you did, you didn’t. This is how I am.”

Fast, like ECT, the current went through your face - shutting your eyes tight didn't stop it.

"No, don't cry, babe. Please don't cry", he begged softly, putting his hands on your arms, your neck.

It'd only been the shock that made you start, not your overall feeling, so you managed to stop.

"Sorry", you laughed and dried your eyes, feeling a little silly. "I'm just a little…", you exhaled loudly, fanning your face.

"...little emotional?"

"Yeah...", you sniveled and laughed again. "Little bit."

He looked so sweet with his crooked smile and compassionate eyes, but also sleepy.

"Do you want to go to bed?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"Kinda."

"I'm sorry..!", he wailed. "I really want to be with you, I missed you like hell, but I'm-"

"Tired?"

"So fucking tired", he chuckled.

"Well, it's no use trying to talk if you're over here falling asleep anyway, is there. Come on", you said, getting up. "I'll come back soon anyway."

"You're leaving?"

You looked at him dumbfounded.

"Well, I… No, I can stay. I'll sit with you."

"Sit with me? No, sleep with me."

You looked at each other then burst out laughing.

"Going straight to the point, are we?"

Kyungsoo's rumbling laughter filled the room as he got into his bed.

"Aish… Come here."

"Am I allowed to?"

"What are they gonna do, I'm already in here, ain't I?"

Strange, giddy, nerves took hold when you unlaced your shoes and got into bed, but dissipated as soon as he put his arm around you and pulled you in close.

“Good night”, he said and kissed your neck.

“Night?”

“Oh. No…”, he said drowsily. “The other…”

You waited to hear his final answer, but instead felt him settle; his hold loosening, chest rising slowly.

“Good nap, Kyung.”

#Kyungsoo scenario #kyungsoo fluff #kyungsoo angst

[rorikoa-xiv]

Moonlit Diver

A cool breeze caressed the hull of the Moonlit Diver before finding its way into the cutter's sails. Beneath a cloudless night sky, facing out from the starboard bow, Galileo knelt in prayer.

"O Nymeia, Spinner of Fate's Threads, praise be to you for the safe journey and bountiful starlight you have provided. By your will, O Spinner, and by Llymlaen's mercy, may we--"

A gruff voice barked behind him. "Oi, Gully, 'nuff of 'at hogwash. We set a course a bell ago, now get yer puny arse t'bed!"

The lalafell's eyes popped open. He knew this voice. "A wise sailor honors the Gods, Arnskaen. What hands have soothed the waters beneath us?"

The middle-aged, swarthy sea wolf took a swig from his bottle before retorting, "Def'ly not no pair o' prayin' hands. An' it ain't gonna be no shaky hands what help about the ship in the mornin'. Get ye some good rest, why don't ye? A frigid bed an' a pillow full o' lice awaits ye!"

Galileo smirked back. "Sounds all too welcoming! Say, what's for breakfast tomorrow? Moldy bread and a thimble of vinegar?"

"Aye, an' ye'll be grateful for it! Most o' yer shipmates're perfectly fine with the slop they get served." The sailor then crossed his arms. "Not like that pint-sized piss-ant we're escortin'."

The lalafell couldn't help but grin. "I'm certain master Totolymo would be crushed to hear you say that of him. I can hear it now. 'Oh, Papalo, fetch me my crying hanky and my soiling pants! These ruffians confound me so!'"

Arnskaen gripped his stomach. "Bahaha, spot on, lad! Iffin' ye ever decide t'quit bein' a navigator, impressions may not be a bad gig!"

The plainsfolk fidgeted with his glasses, and looked to the stars. "Aha, I'd never. No, the sea has charmed me thoroughly enough."

The roegadyn knelt over, hovering his hand above Galileo's head. "Big words comin' from a scrap what near threw-up 'is first time eatin' on a Lominsan vessel. Ye know, ye sure took yer bloody time gettin' yer sea legs, boy."

The lalafell cast his glance down before biting back, "Don't blame me for the fact that I got to train on calm waters. Vylbrand's seas are considerably less quiet than those to the south."

He then turned his eyes toward the ocean. "Though I suppose even a land as restless as Eorzea needs a calm night now and then."

Arnskaen went to lean over the bow. After taking in the view, he piped up once more. "Speakin' o' quiet nights, ye ain't had many lately, have ye?"

A strong gale suddenly pressed against the hull, and an uneasy groan rose up. Galileo took a moment to steady his footing, then gave the sailor a curious look. "What could you mean?"

Arnskaen turned to face the boy, leaning his back on the bow. "Think I ain't noticed it? Yer gait, yer tone… summin's been puttin' iron into that squishy spine ye brought here. So what all 'appened?"

The lad rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Well… working on waters like these will toughen anyone up, right? Haha…"

The sea wolf's spoke back in an earnest tone. "Nah, that ain't it. Happened too quick. Ye did summat or other... out o' yer depth. I know it when I see it. So come now, humor an elder's curiosity. What'd ye get into, eh?"

Galileo sighed, crossing his arms and setting his gaze on the sky.

The reogadyn furrowed his brow, and spoke up again. "Ye know… ye remind me a bit o' me younger self, back in me Maelstrom days."

The lalafell's eyes didn't move, even when he responded. "How do you figure?"

Arnskaen took another drink, and looked upward. "Weren't always the war-like man I am now, lad. Was a time ye couldn't get me t'hold me quiverin' legs still when someone even mentioned battle. Dunno how I made it through basic… 'en this bugger I was good mates with, he gets sent off ta clear out a den o' sahagin."

The lalafell cocked an eyebrow. "What became of him?"

The wind had started dying down, first to a whisper, then to silence.

"Got killed." Arnskaen replied. "Javelin through the throat. Found 'is body when me unit got tasked with goin' in an' doin' what his couldn't. I made sure every bloody fishback in that rotten hole payed for what they did."

Galileo took a step back, then gave his shipmate his full attention. "I'm… sorry to hear about your loss. I'm sure he was a good friend and soldier."

The veteran nodded. "Those 'e was. But ye ain't got nothin' t'be sorry over. Man died servin' his land, an' that's a fine thing. 'sides… him gettin' skewered mighta stopped many more deaths." He then took a deep swig from his bottle, until it ran dry.

The plainsfolk gave the sea wolf a confused look. "What… exactly makes you say that?"

The roegadyn let out a satisfied sigh, pounding his chest before tossing his bottle overboard. "Because it killed me inner coward! Because I'd have gone on as a feeble-necked cabin boy iffin' I hadn't known what it was like t'take justice inta me own hands!"

The navigator stepped back cautiously as his shipmate continued. "All them buggerin' priests'll talk yer ears off about 'forgiveness' this an' 'mercy' that… but fiery vengeance is what forges a quiver-lipped sod into a warrior."

Galileo's eyes snapped wide open. "Arnskaen!"

"Dun' try an' deny it, boy! Ye know it too… can smell it on ye, now--"

The lalafell tore the grimoire from his belt, gesturing quickly as his carbuncle flashed into reality. With a fierce shake of the creature's tails, a powerful gale slammed against the sea wolf's back, and a spear that would have gone clean through his neck instead grazed against his shoulder.

"What in blue blazes-- sound the alarm! We got comp'ny!"

A clanging bell pierced the sound of the now-rising winds, and men began rushing out of their bunks below deck. Above, Arnskaen slung his axe over his shoulder and lowered his stance. As he expected, a group of sahagin soon leapt over the bow, about eight from what he saw.

The sea wolf then set himself between the beastmen and Galileo. "Get below deck, boy! I'll hold off these scale-skinned whoresons!"

The navigator scampered away, nearly getting knocked over by the four men who came rushing from the ship's interior. Stopping as the last passed him, he turned to watch the battle unfold.

"Finlessss fools!" shouted one beastman as he rushed Arnskaen with a crude pike, only to be met with a crushing strike from the haft of an axe! As he reeled back, the Maelstrom veteran followed through with a chop that left his foe in pieces! "C'mon, lads! Send 'em back to the bottom o' the sea!"

Galileo continued to watch as steel clashed with scale and fang dug into flesh. The odds seemed to be against his crew. He knew he had to act, but fear gripped his legs.

"AARRRGH!" One of the sailors cried out! A sahagin had bitten a chunk out of his hand, and the wound was spouting blood. The navigator looked on, first in horror, then in fury. A memory burst into his head. One of a red-headed lalafell, shorn of an arm, lying motionless in a hospital bed.

Meanwhile, Arnskaen had been tripped up by a foe's net, and fumbled on the floor for his axe. A slimy leg kicked him onto his back, before stomping down on his chest. The sahagin roared, and prepared to drive his spear into the man's heart.

The roegadyn clenched his eyes and thought of begging for any listening god's mercy. However, the strike never came. He opened one eye in time to see a green bolt of energy sail into the sahagin's gaping maw. It stumbled away, before lurching over and spewing out a mess of fish bones and rotting meat.

The sailor craned his neck to see Galileo approaching the fray, sending a volley of aetheric missiles to pelt the enemy. Flashing a toothy grin, he reached for his axe again, and cut himself free. Propping himself back up, he rushed the vomiting beastman with a lethal swing!

With the force of magic and iron on their side, the crew made gruesome work of the remaining foes. When all the sahagin had either died or fled, the men brought their injured fellow below deck for treatment, leaving Arnskaen and Galileo to clean up the gore.

The roegadyn eventually piped up after lobbing a sahagin head overboard. "Proved me right, ye know."

"About what?" asked the lalafell.

"About ye. Someone went an' made ye a real fighter. Sure ye ain't wanna tell me who?"

The plainsfolk boy set his mop aside, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Man… we're wading through entrails and shite and you still wanna talk about this?"

The veteran snorted. "Twould only be fair, lad. After all, I told ye 'bout what made me into the fine, honest bloodletter ye see before ya. Who popped yer vengeance cherry, Gully?"

"I did NOT act in vengeance!" Galileo stomped his foot, and stared straight into his shipmate's eyes. "But… I did take justice into my own hands. That, you and I share."

"Do tell, me boy. 'm all ears." The sea wolf leaned against the mast, setting aside his mop and popping open a flask.

The lalafell sighed, and began. "So… there's this fight pit…"

* * * * * * * * * *

"Baha! Whooped a bloody Dotharl, did ye? Garharhar, haha!" The roegadyn drunkenly stumbled forward, nearly slipping in a puddle of blood.

Galileo chuckled as he watched his shipmate stagger. "It's the gospel truth, my friend. She took my best friend's arm, so I pounded her to a pulp, in the same place it happened. In fact, I broke her. Humiliated her in front of all her associates."

Arnskaen steadied himself on the mast, doing his best to keep his dinner in his stomach. "Bahaha, ye-- hah, ye know, iffin' ye didn't jus' save me arse from a bloody fishback, I'd toss ye overboard for tellin' such monkey-shite tales! But since I owe ye one, I'll call us even!"

"I'm telling you, I really--" Galileo's assurances were interrupted by a door creaking open.

A well-dressed dunesfolk with hanging eyelids stepped out from the interior. "Gentlemen, must you make such a-- oh… oh, Oschon's mercy, what in all seven hells is this?" The man covered his mouth, and tried to hold back a gag.

"Just restin' after a battle, bossman! We'll get right back t'cleanin' up your pretty ship, don't ye worry." The sea wolf rolled his neck, and smiled at the sight of his employer's nausea.

"Ugh… h-how can you even stand a scent so… so wretched?! Enough lazing about on your laurels! If this ship isn't spick and span by morning, I'm-- I'm docking your pay! Now move!" The ship's owner furiously stomped off, slamming the door behind him.

Galileo shrugged at his shipmate. "My impression of him really is spot on, isn't it?"

"Harharhar! And how, lad! C'mon, let's get 'er cleaned up. Plenty o' fishman pieces t'go 'round!" The roegadyn chucked a severed sahagin arm at the navigator before picking up his mop.

The lalafell winced as the slimy limb slapped into his face. After prying it off, he took several moments to stare down at it, and his lips curled into a grimace.

Arnskaen looked over at the boy. "Oi… yer mate what got 'is arm lopped off… is he alright?"

"He will be." Galileo replied. "Gods as my witnesses, he will be."

#ashen_wolves_ffxiv #ffxiv #lalafell

[bibliocratic]

drunken nights

jonmartin, scottish safehouse, drinking wine and card games

fluff. just fluff. 

His lips and teeth stained purplish, Jon finishes his drink with an extravagant flourish and beckons impatiently for the corkscrew. 

Martin's put it down somewhere, so by the time he's uncovered it from down the side of the sofa, Jon's sourced a new bottle, digging into the soft flesh of the cork with the metal implement Martin's passed over.

Their second evening in the safe house has wound down grim and blustery, the creak of the cottage like a laden floorboard, and Martin is discovering Jon drinks exactly like a uni student.  

“We should play a game,” Jon proposes grandly and decisively, holding up a finger like he wants to illustrate a  particularly salient point in a lecture.

“Like what?” Martin says, content to let the words form and fall out of his mouth lazily, half-moulded like a cushion against the back of the sofa. Like some indolent Caesar, he holds his mug out, shaking it at Jon until he gets the message. Jon gives himself a triumphant and satisfied nod when he manages to top up both of their mugs – there was no glasses in the cupboards that they've yet found, and Jon seems content to fill the mismatched mugs up like he's pouring tea – without spillage.

“Let's do questions,” Jon says, passing back Martin's topped-up drink. He's gone blotchy around his throat, but he fixes on Martin with wine-bright eyes, bearing one of those smiles on his face that Martin never knew could come so easily.

“Don't you have.... y-your omniscient mind powers f'that?” Martin says, squinting as Jon, who had just sat down and sunk against him, in a resolute gear-change becomes a spiky thing with a mission, all elbows as he pushes himself back up to a wavering stand before lurching in the direction of the kitchen cabinets.

“I'm serious!” Jon replies, making a god-awful clattering racket as he pushes aside cutlery and tin opener and spatulas from their home in the top drawer that apparently holds everything, either kitchen-related or not. 

Finally, with a little 'ah!', he brandishes like a dog-eared grail a grimy looking box of playing cards. “Daisy left these.”

“Makes a nice change from gaffer tape an' weirdly stained rope,” Martin burbles back, using the divinely-granted opportunity he's been bestowed to give Jon a shameless and fondly admiring once-over before Jon swivels around on the balls of his feet and Martin schools his expression mild and dopey. “Anyway, you want t' do questions, why don't we jus' play Never Have I Ever or summin'?”

Jon makes a face that is either currently remembering some beer-soaked student days or trying very hard to forget.

“My game's better,” he says, bee-lining back to his position squashed against Martin's stomach. He throws himself down heavily, and Martin gives a grunting, over-dramatic ooof as his favourite hedgehog-human elbows him while he reconfigures his seating. “'s fun.”

“You know the meaning of the word then?”

Jon sticks out his tongue. Martin tries to poke it with his finger, and Jon reels back with another one of those wine-laden expressions, earnest and open as a window.

“I want to know everything about you,” he says, struggling with finding the opening at the top of the pack, before  he pauses, dutifully following up with a no-less sincere and concessionary: “But not if you don't want to.”

Martin takes the cards off him, not wanting to watch Jon martyr himself for hours trying to open something for the second time in as many days. (The raspberry jam was still unopened and apparently fused shut for later civilisations to one day come across. Martin had caught Jon trying to pop the seal with a knife and there had been words).

Jon sways and folds his limbs cross legged, body leaning towards Martin as he unpacks the cards into his palm.

“What questions then?”

Jon huffs.

“I'm not going to tell you, that's not the game.”

“What if you cheat though?”

“I won't!”

“'s what a cheater would say.”

“Martin...!”

“Tell y' what,” Martin grins, “Rules! You like those. Right – er – kay, if you use your ominous eye powers – ”

“I'm not going t – ”

“If. Then, then there's a penalty. 's fair, right?”

Jon grumbles another petulant 'not gonna' into his wine mug, the protestation echoing.

“I think...” Martin says slowly, blinking heavily, taking a big swig and sloshing it around his mouth. “...you should hafta take a drink.”

“I'm drinking anyway,” Jon replies impishly, with one of his own-brand smug expressions, and Martin shushes him with a shoulder-shove and a grinning 'another drink then!'

Jon takes the cards out of Martin's hands, almost folds the lines in his forehead in concentration as he tries to shuffle them, and then promptly fans them all over the sofa.

“A-and!” Martin says with a pleased smirk. “A-and I get another question!”

Jon makes the kind of sigh that implies he is possessed of saintly, near beatific patience for agreeing to such unreasonableness.

Martin leans forward and sloppily kisses Jon's hairline, and this seems to appease him. He tries to sit straighter up, fails and gives up up as a bad idea anyway.

The game is decided. It's simple and easy for their lubricated minds to parse – if a black card is turned over, Jon asks Martin a question. If a red, Martin asks Jon. Number cards are easier, more playful questions. Higher number cards and picture cards are more serious or personal questions. Any card can be refused at any time. Jon repeats this with an anxious frown until Martin nudges him with an elbow, sensing a spiral starting if he doesn't intervene, and demands the game be begun.

The rules go out of the window just as simply. Often they'll get tangled in the bramble-patch of some question, mouth full of reminiscences, clarifying or expanding questions batted back and forth like a casual and amenable round of some racquet sport. But, equally likely, debate will spring up over the numerical value of the question and that will cheerfully eat up the time as they spiritedly disagree on what sorts of information is worth what number.

“That's an eight at least, y' - you can't ask that until you've got at least an eight.”

“But I've not got an eight, I’ve a six.”

“Then tough, you better wait.”

“But you could tell me nooooww.”

Jon draws a nine of spades, and spends an over-long amount of time pondering the question.

“C'mon, hurry up.” Martin nudges him with a socked toe, and takes another gulp of his rapidly depleting wine.

“I'm thinking,” Jon pouts.

Martin stretches out, yawning, and then awkwardly manoeuvres himself so he's on his back, half lying on Jon's crossed legs, the rest of him stuck out over the arm of the sofa to dangle.

“You look silly upside down,” he says, following the line of Jon's jaw, his vision getting a little less concrete now but perfectly happy to float in his tipsy haze for a while.

Jon trails a hand through Martin's hair rhythmically while he ponders.

“I've got – yeh, yeh, I've got one,” he says finally. “Ok, here you go, right – when was your last relationship?”

“I had a three-week fling about five years ago with a guy called Manoj,” Martin replies, loose-lipped, riding the easy slide of the words slicking out of his mouth. “He's some high-flying investment banker now. Not good boyfriend material, you know, but we kept in touch, text sometimes if we wanted to hook up.”

The static in Martin's head fades enough for him to frown and shake himself free of the urge that just swept him along.

“Shit,” Jon swear.  Martin doesn't like the blank expression of horror that's begun to creep like ivy rash, pushing aside his reddening inebriation.  “Shit – Martin – I...”

“You're a cheat!” Martin declares quickly, efficiently sweeping all concerns about Jon's mild lapse from his mind in favour of smugly finger-pointing. “Cheat! That's – More wine! That's t'rules.”

“I – er.”

Martin's stumbling fingers reach down to the side of the sofa, and he sits up enough to fill Jon's mug again. It overflows a bit and drips on Jon's jeans and neither of them notice.

“You promised no mind powers,” he sing-songs, pushing the mug back at Jon.

Jon's expression seeps from heightened and horrified to a cautious mild embarrassment, and Martin feels a warm wash of a job accomplished.

“'was an accident,” he says as he sinks his face into the mug.

“Penalties are penalties.” Martin grins.

“You really have hook-ups with an investment banker?”

“Had. Past tense. Don't judge me.”

“I'm not – you can do what you like with your own body. Jus' they tend to be a bit...” Jon makes a most definitely judgy face.

“Stuck up?”

“I was going to try arrogant.”

“Maybe that's my type,” Martin says with a goofy wink, and Jon rolls his eyes. “And that was a sip, Jonathan, that's not a penalty.”

Jon drinks a little more. Martin bestows a graceless kiss against his cheek as a reward for his pains.

“And now my question,” Martin says.

Jon has the habit of drawing his eyebrows intensely together as he waits for each question, as though readying to give the enquiry the entirety of his attention.

“Alright. Go on.”

“Which one of my poems is your favourite?”

“I'm not answering that.”

“Why not?”

“Martin...”

“Fine. Another one. Non-morose answers only.” Martin bops Jon's nose. He's struggled through the reticence of his unruly limbs to sit up properly, and enjoys the fruits of his labours in that he can now more easily look at Jon while he's talking. “What do you wish you were better at?”

“Well, under such strict and unnecessary restrictions,” Jon says, who has taken advantage of Martin's more upright position to lean against him like a capsizing boat,  his mug hugged against his breastbone. “Dunno. I've always quite liked the idea of – of getting into astronomy. There's all of the visually observable stuff, and it's fascinating, like it's – 't's really cool, the sorts of things you can see, even with reasonably cheap equipment, but then – then they've got this – this thing called radio astronomy, an' it's where you detect things like pulsars and stuff using radio waves, and it's really amazing, you know and – why're you smiling at me like that?”

“I'm dating such a nerd,” Martin laughs and fails to disguise how charmed he is, how wide his wine-stained lips are pulled. “That's adorable.”

“What about you then?” Jon says. He's going for affronted, but his hair is sprouting up fly-away, there's a strip of darkening skin over his nose and cheeks, and he has honest-to-god dimples that even his scruffy patch of beard doesn't mask when he smiles with his whole mouth. His happiness is a thoughtless, reckless thing and Martin thinks it's stunning. If he can figure out how to word it, he's definitely going to tell Jon, just blurt it out because Jon deserves to know, should be told how much his happiness means to Martin.

Jon swivels his body to drape his legs over Martin's knees, fidgets like a cat before he finally stills.

“Maybe baking?” Martin muses. He strokes the knobbly bone on the side of Jon's ankle, the skin fading smooth from the dark hair down his legs, and Jon twitches like he's ticklish. “I've never really...”

“Martin!” Jon says suddenly. Sitting up so fast in fact that he sloshes a blood-coloured stain onto his shirt.

“What?” Martin says, a buzz of threatened sobriety at whatever has broken their languid, lazy peace.  Jon's putting his mug down and leaning forward.

“Martin,” he stresses again, and his face has filled up with a torch-bright light, dimples deepening. “There's flour in the kitchen. Martin, th-there's – I think there's... Eggs! We've eggs, 'n you got milk – let's make – let's make a cake!”

Martin blinks.

“What now?”

“Yeah, sure, now.”

Martin snorts.

“That oven's seen the Blitz, Jon! We'll need tetanus shots before we go near the thing.”

“N', n' it'll be fine, Daisy used it to make bread to disguise the smell of bleach.”

“God, that's not the ringing endorsement you think it is.”

“Hush, c'mon, let's go look,” Jon tries to stumble up and nearly drop-kicks his innocently placed mug. Martin breaks into a tipsy peal of laughter, squawks when Jon nearly collapses back onto him, almost headbutting him before he squashes his face with a petulant, slightly-off-the-mark kiss.

“Fine,” Martin half-slurs as Jon squirms, trying to separate them and drag Martin up from where he was entirety committed to being dug in for the evening. “F'ne, we'll look, kay, you pr'lly can't get rabies anyway with your mind powers.”

Jon staggers and nearly slips. Martin, feeling that it'll be better for all concerned if Jon is not allowed to do much walking for the moment, instead feels that now is a perfect moment to demonstrate every expression of chivalry he's always rather sappily wanted to shower a loved one with.

This firmly in mind, the idea growing better by the moment, Martin valiantly attempts to lift Jon in a wonky bridal carry.

Jon near shrieks with something that is both primal and delighted, but also rationally terrified: “Martin, your back!” Your back!”

“'s fine,” Martin grunts.

“You're going to do your back in!”

“If you keep squirming around, lemme get a good grip.”

“You're g-g-goin' to drop me, M-Martin!”

Tears are rolling down Jon's cheeks, his chest heaving in short-breathed gasping laughter that makes their small cramped living room seem bigger than it is.  Martin does nearly drop him, but the sofa is still there for Martin to plant the hiccuping, giggling object of his devotions down upon safely. It takes a few minutes, but he convinces the leggy, laugh-shook drunkard he calls his own to clamber onto his back like a leggy koala, and this is more successful as Martin swayingly carries him into the kitchen.

(Their cakes are flat, lacking in sugar and near carbonated by the time they remember to take them out of the oven. Martin wakes up with Jon's hair in his mouth and a thundering pity-party of  a headache made worse by Jon's snoring and he cannot for the life of him stop smiling).

#tma #the magnus archives #fic #jonmartin #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #fluff #i absolutely love that headcanon that jon and martin just spent one night at the safehouse just getting slaughtered and having fun #give them something happy #cw alcohol

[moral-turpitudes]

Omg, love love love your college headcanons for the Peaks! What do you think Alfie would be like in that verse?

Hi! Thanks so much for the love! 💗

Omg I love this idea! I’m formatting this one a bit different but here’s like a small headcanon for him to answer your question haha!

I feel like he’d definitely be in one of the same majors as Tommy, so probably business management since he dabbles in various ventures and does business with the blinders and stuff on the side.

He and Tommy would be friends but in the classroom they’d always be competing against each other.

He’d go to Starbucks just for the baked goods. His family owns pastry shops around town, so he likes to snag some things every so often to remind him of home. Grace used to give him one for free if he’d agree to not tell Tommy about her snooping around in the Shelby’s business and that she was leaving.

Since his religion is a big part of him I wouldn’t be surprised if he started a group on campus much like the one Linda was in, except like not as cringey and in your face.

He’d probably be seen with his other friends sitting at the quad drinking and rambling about anything and everything.

Tommy would eventually join him to study sometimes after a long day but he’d always have to keep him on topic.

“What hand you write with mate? It’s ya right innit?”

“Why does it matter Alfie?” He’d ask exhausted.

“Oh ya know just reading summin’ about cheating. Like a handbook right? You see the person can look over and see ya answers better if they sit at your non-dominant side. Wild stuff I tell ya.”

“I won’t be sitting by you so that’s nothing to worry about. You have one working eye so it would be hard to cheat off me anyways aye?” Tommy would say.

“That’s harsh. Really breaking my heart Tommy. Oh well, it was worth the try.” Alfie would say, leaning back in his seat before cracking open his notes.

He’d study for a whole 5 minutes before speaking again, ripping Tommy from his concentration.

“Christ Alfie. Do you ever stop talking?” Tommy would say, his coffee growing colder as the minutes passed.

“Well ya see I think I was put on this earth to bless you with my fucking voice and my infinite wisdom. I’m sure if I walked out right now you’d want me to come back and talk again. God knew what he was doing. Can’t doubt that.” He’d say.

Tommy would look at him and shake his head with a smirk, chucking the cold coffee onto the cobblestones and lighting a cigarette.

“I think you were put on this earth to be a pain in my ass.” He’d say, blowing smoke from his mouth.

He could also be seen around campus in his long coat and top hat, resting against the big stone walls of various buildings.

When he wasn’t annoying Tommy, he’d try to show up to Johns frat house or Arthur’s dorm to see what they were up to.

“Shalom, Arthur! How’s that girl of yours, Linda?”

“Oi! Get the fook out.” He’d say half asleep.

“You didn’t answer my question mate.”

“She’s gone. Crazy bitch tried to shoot me, she may be as good as dead now.” He’d say tersely.

“You serious? Me mum said one thing to me right, she said only ones you can trust are the dead. They hold all our secrets. Fucking truth I tell you mate. Good thing she’s gone. I have someone in mind for ya anyways.” He said.

He’d always try to be a matchmaker, 10/10 would say it’s his superpower.

“I don’t want your fookin’ help Alfie. Leave before I get the rest of em’ over here.” He’d say, closing the door.

“Right. Well I’ll go see Johnny boy now. Just making the rounds.” He’d say, leaving Arthur annoyed as he slammed the door.

When he wasn’t annoying his blinder friends he’d scout the boxers at the ring, making small bets and chatting up the random girls who’d be there to watch.

He was always focused on a thousand things so it wasn’t often that girls crossed his mind, but when he did manage to crush on someone, everyone knew because he’d not tease the blinders as much and he’d stumble over his words when talking about her.

He wouldn’t be much for frat parties but he was always down to join the blinders at the bars off campus.

Overall he’d be good company and the blinders would always go to him for advice on various things and get him to help them on occasion.

#katiesanons #katies headcanons #peaky blinders headcanons #alfie solomons #peaky blinders #peaky blinders imagines #peaky blinders fanfic

[picturejasper20]

I'm going to make a response to a SU video made a few years ago by @robobuddies, who goes by "Red Van Buskirk" the video is called "The Steven universe rant." The video was uploaded in 8 Sep in 2017.

Keep the date in mind because is going to become important later.

I going to refer to Red Van Buskirk as "they/them" since they prefer these pronouns and "Red Van" for short.

And don't harass this person in social media! This is supossed to be a response. Nothing else. I'm saying this because i know how things work. So, don't bully them. OK?

I'm not going to make a rebuttal of every single tiny detail because the video is 40 minutes long and the creator of the video sometimes jumps from one point to another and loses focus on what they are talking about:

First they start the video with a Disclaimer: "I'm going to be harsh and hyperbolic for the sake of entertainment".

Now here's my problem: i get sometimes youtube critics want to play a "persona" but sometimes comes off more as an lazy excuse to avoid criticism. This has happened before with Cinema Sins many times. It's not exactly a very good way of starting your video, specially if you want to be considered a profesional or be taken seriously.

Like if i'm going to give my opinion about something, i do it, i don't say "It's just my persona", i want to honest with my mutuals and people who like my content.

They also mention how the SU fandom can't take criticism and sometimes consider everything a personal attack. While i agree this fandom can be a living nightmare, the reason of why we sometimes get so mad is because people who sometimes do these types of rants don't do their research about the show, the video gets millions of views and well..

Which goes to my next point:

-Red Van, you need to do your research.

A huge part of the video they talk about the animation behind the show and mention "Motorcity" as a good example of composition.

Here's the thing: They barely mention which programs the creators use to create these shows or the animation studios which is quite a problem if you are going to talk about animation for half of your video.

"Motorcity is animated with a combination of Flash, Maya and After Effects – with backgrounds and other elements created in Photoshop."

"Created by Chris Prynoski, Motorcity is produced by Robin Red Breast, Inc. (a subsidiary of Titmouse, Inc.) and Disney Television Animation."

Link (X)

Steven universe was animated by two korean studios: Summin and Rough Draft

Link (X)

The programs the crewniverse used to animate Steven universe Link: (X)

They mention how the animators of Steven universe were "lazy" for not making the scene of "Mr.Greg"- Is over, isn't it? More interesting..

Here's the thing.. they wanted to:

This was the original concept but they didn't have time to animate it into the show. They were time restraints to animate it.

Link that talks about the episode Mr.Greg and the animatic: (X)

Now this episode "Mr.Greg" came out in 2016, and Red Van's SU video rant was uploaded in September 2017. That's like an year to find that post.. so why didn't they search for it?

They complain about the writers forgeting about the powers of the characters.. So, i'm just going to leave this right here from a SU reddit AMA:

The writers kinda came up with some powers but they also had a list of what powers they could do.

Now to be fair to Red Van, this AMA was made in way after their video, so i can't blame them for not knowing this detail.

They also mention how the gems don't use their powers to catch Peridot: The issue with this argument is that the gems had no idea how Gem Homeworld technology had changed and Peridot had tons of tricks to get the upper hand. And the gems only fight Peridot two times in season 2 before they catch her in "Catch and Release". That's why they catch her quickly in "Catch and Release" they already know her tricks and catch her by surprise.

"Peridot is coming.And we don't know who or what she'll be coming with. She's a modern gem with modern gem technology that's bound to overpower us." -Garnet Political Power

They also complain about Amethyst not using her shapeshifting powers to catch Peridot.. but later in "Message received" Amethyst shapeshifts into a helicopter to stop Peridot and her robot.. why they don't mention this?

Amethyst also used her shapeshifting powers in other battles (Ocean gem, Steven vs Amethyst).. they brieftly mention this for a second but don't go into much detail in their video.

In one part of their video they talk about the writing..they fail to mention how the process works.

Here's is how it works:

"As some of you know, Steven Universe is a storyboard driven show, meaning a team of storyboard artists are given an outline off of which they write all of the dialogue and storyboard the episode.  The job of the outline, and my job, is to give them the basic framework for the episode - the story."

Link to Ben Levin post (X).

Here's is another one about Ian talking about the writing process: (X)

Now the Ben Levin post about writing is from 11 sep 2015. I think with 10-15 minutes you can find the post. And if i remember correctly it was even in the SU subreddit. And is from the episode "Lion 3"

They also mention Adventure time several times in their rant to compare it to Steven universe.

Now wasn't Adventure Time a storyboard driven show like Steven universe?

Well, yes.

"Each episode of Adventure Time takes about nine months to produce and begins in a writer’s room with series creator Ward, producers Adam Muto and Kent Osborne, and staff writer Jack Pendarvis. From that meeting, they generate a barebones, two-page outline. Those outlines are handed over to one of four storyboard teams who have two weeks to visually outline the episode. “They’re basically directing,” says Osborne. “They’re writing all the jokes, editing the outline, picking all the camera shots… what the episode is going to look like.”

Link

https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-is-how-an-episode-of-cartoon-networks-adventure-time-is-made#:~:text=Each%20episode%20of%20Adventure%20Time,barebones%2C%20two-page%20outline.&text=“They're%20basically%20directing%2C”%20says%20Osborne.

It's also worth of mentioning that Rebecca Sugar worked previously on Adventure time.. i think Red Van doesn't mention this detail in their video.

Rebecca Sugar was nominated for the episodes : "It Came from the Nightosphere" and "Simon and Marcy". She storyboarded " I Remember you" which has one of the most iconic moments in modern western animation. ( People who complain about Steven universe but like Adventure time rarely seem to mention this detail).

Link (X) (Episodes she storyboarded in Adventure time)

There is also one point they just start nitpicking and tearing down the show, which reminds me of Cinema sins, except is not as funny.

Red Van, what you are doing here in this part can be done with any other show and is a very easy thing to do. I could also make a 30 minute rant of MotorCity or tmnt 2012 nitpicking every tiny detail but it's not exactly good criticism.

They later complain about the Steven universe perspective..

I leave this here,is from that same SU AMA reddit i mentioned earlier in the post which explains the Steven's perspective.

Now, i didn't have a problem with the Steven only perspective. In many ways its what makes the story of SU work. We learn about the world as Steven learns. The more Steven grows, the more we learn things aren't as simple as they seemed to be.

Characters sometimes will hold information about X person from Steven, so he's forced to ask other characters about it.

It seems to be suggestive since i only actually started paying attention to it when people brought it up. Like, it wasn't such a big deal for me.

Now i could go on and on with this response but i would like to leave it here.

What do i think of this video? If i was a teacher and a student tried to show me a video like this for my class, i would probably ask the student to make it again. Not because it complains about Steven universe, is just is poorly organized in some parts and lacks proper research.

As someone who likes analyzing media is quite difficult for me to take this rant seriously. It has issues and is like those Cinema sins videos but isn't that funny.

And there's one more thing:

I found this youtube comment in which Red Van admitted that they should have done more research into the show production and animation. At least is good to know they are honest and say they made some mistakes in their video.

The problem is that.. well.. since their Steven universe rant many others have cited their work and their video has 1 million of views... even though it contain a few errors that the creator admitted.

I wouldn't call Red Van a bad person, they actually are nice. However.. Their SU video is a bit misguided and somewhat problematic. But is not the worst thing ever.

#steven universe #animation #rebecca sugar #crewniverse #bad takes #SU youtube #media analysis #western animation #response #long long post

[takerfoxx]

IM Swiftly Descending Darkness, Chapter 7

Down.

Deep down, down, down.

Down into the dark. Down into the cold. Down into the place devoid of light, devoid of kindness, devoid of hope.

Down into the place of pain. Down into the place of despair. Down into the place from which there is no escape, the place set aside for those of the blackest of souls, of the darkest of hearts.

Down into the prison set in the furthest reaches of existence, down into the place intended to swallow the progenitors of evil and suffering, down into the place of Judgment.

Down into the dark.

Down into the cold.

Down into chains.

And then…a face. A pale, beautiful face, framed by long hair so dark that it melts into the darkness that frames it. It is not the face of a man or a women, but of an ethereal creature whose beauty defies gender, defies mortality, defies humanity.

But it is a cruel beauty, to be feared rather than desired. It is beautiful like a wildfire is beautiful, like a hurricane is beautiful, like a black hole is beautiful, and so much more destructive, so much more malicious.

Its eyes are closed, though not in sleep, but in waiting.

Its eyes are closed, but its mouth is moving, curling up into a poisonous smile.

Rumia’s eyes snapped open.

The view she was greeted with was at once familiar, yet alien. The wooden slats of a slightly slanted wooden roof were above her. She knew those slats, every single line and nick and knot. She saw them when she went to bed and they were the first thing that greeted her when she woke up.

And yet she couldn’t stop staring at them. No, that wasn’t right. They shouldn’t be there; she shouldn’t be there! She ought to be seeing…

Darkness.

Rumia’s right eye twitched.

Cold.

No, she was home! She was in the Aoki Yume’s Children’s Home, the only home she had ever known! This was normal!

Chains.

Then why did it look so unfamiliar? Why did she feel so out of place?

“Rumia?”

Rumia turned her head toward the voice. She was greeted by a nut-brown, heart-shaped face, one with large, dark eyes and shiny black hair that hung over one shoulder in a tightly knotted ponytail.

Once again she was struck by a wave of recognition and confusion. Who is this person? whispered one part of her mind.

What do you mean? answered another. It’s Melissa Garcia! You see her every day!

“Estas despierto!” Melissa said excitedly, which was something neither part of Rumia understood. “Oh, gracias a Jesús!” Then she cleared her throat and said slowly, “Are you all right?”

Rumia didn’t answer. She just stared.

“Rumia?” Melissa waved her hand in front of Rumia’s face. Her dark eyes frowned in concern. “Can you…Can you hear me?”

Rumia opened her mouth to respond. “Who are…” Then she stopped. No, wait, that wasn’t right. “Melissa,” she said. “What happened?”

Before Melissa could answer, someone groaned in discomfort and confusion.

As Melissa ran over to see to the person in question, Rumia struggled to put her thoughts in order. What the hell had happened? They had been…okay, there was the fight at the market, that much she remembered pretty well. And after that had been flying lessons. And then-

The spider’s long, gaunt face stretched as it opened its mouth wide. Inside was a black pit, filled with row after row of quivering teeth.

Rumia shivered. Right. The spiders. The kidnapping. The forest-

The slender creature turned its faceless visage toward her. It reached out with one stick-thin limb, as long as Miss Mokou was tall.

Rumia covered her face. No, please. Make it stop.

Eiko lay upon the table, her torso split wide open. The spiders were feasting upon her innards, ripping away chunks of meat and offal with their teeth. Her face was still visible, the pale flesh now splattered with her own blood, the eyes plucked right from the sockets and yet still managing to convey the terror and pain she had been feeling in her final moments.

No, no, no, no!

The spider had them, had ensnared their legs. It was dragging them back, pulling them to their deaths.

And then…and then…

What had happened then?

She had vague memories of something explicably twisted, something to do with…skeletons? Skeletons and sand? It had been horrible, that much she was certain of, but try as she might, she couldn’t recall more than a few fleeting images.

Rumia struggled to sit up. She was in the sick room, where kids who fell ill or were injured were kept to recover, as well as to prevent diseases from spreading. It was a small room surrounded by cabinets, with several sleeping mats spread on the ground. She was lying on one of the sleeping mats, with others around her. She saw Haruko and Hayate, still unmoving and unresponsive. Kana was there too, looking even more unwell than usual. Keine seemed to be sleeping unsoundly, if the way her closed eyes and jaw was tightening up and her face shone with sweat.

Kohta, however, had also woken up. He had been the one groaning, and was now sitting up as well, with Melissa kneeling next to him.

“Ugh,” he said as he rubbed his forehead. “What…where…”

“Sick room,” Melissa told him. “Um, are you all right?”

Kohta squinted at her. “Who…what…?”

Melissa swallowed. “It is me. Melissa Garcia. Do you not know me?”

“Melissa?” Kohta blinked his eyes several times and shook his head. “Oh, right. Melissa. Hi.”

“Hello. Are you…” Melissa reached over to touch his shoulder.

Kohta violently recoiled. “Don’t touch me!”

Melissa quickly withdrew her hand. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to…”

“Don’t,” Kohta repeated. “Just don’t touch me. Don’t.”

“Um…” Melissa’s eyes flicked from Kohta to Rumia to find them both glaring at her. “Er, okay?” She nervously licked her lips. “Are you…okay?”

Neither Rumia nor Kohta said anything.

“Right.” Melissa stood up. “I will go get Miss Satoko then.”

She hurried from the room, leaving the two of them sitting together in silence.

…

Joshua sat on the edge of his bed, bowed head in his hands. His lips moved silently but fervently, in time with the prayer he had been repeating in his head and heart over and over ever since that night in the Youkai Forest.

Lord, grant me strength. Please. I don’t know what to do. I need your guidance now. Jesus, please.

It had been three days since the children had been taken by the spiders. Three days since he had plunged into the forest alone in hopes of finding them. Three days since he had seen the cruelty suffered by poor Eiko on her last day. Three days since he had been thoroughly reminded of the stark evil that prowled his new home’s darkest corners.

Three days since he had seen his friend Fujiwara no Mokou for what she really was.

Joshua had seen and even done his share of things that he would like to forget, and that night was filled with more than its fair share. But nothing would ever compare to those few minutes, when he had sat by himself in the middle of the scorched remains of the spider’s lair, Eiko’s butchered body sitting in a filthy sack next to him, hands covering his ears as he tried not to hear what Mokou was doing to those spiders.

Please! Mercy, I beseech yah!

But no matter how hard he pressed his palms to his ears, no matter how loudly he prayed, he could never shut out their screams, nor the cold, pitiless sound of Mokou’s voice.

Mercy? You have the gall to beg me for mercy? Did you show mercy to that girl? Tell me: when she screamed, did you laugh? When she cried, did it make you feel powerful? When she stopped moving, were you disappointed that your fun was over?

No! I’m sorry, we wun’t do it again, I-AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!

And then the smell of burning flesh, already hanging thick along with the stench of ash and rot, had suddenly grown.

I can go as slow or as fast as you like. I can break, I can pop, and I can burn. Slow cook or searing flame, whatever I choose. And if you don’t want me to start getting creative, you’re going to tell me everything I want to know. You do that, and I’ll simply turn you all into to ashes so you can resurrect good as new later. One quick flash-fire, and it’ll all be over. Or I can draw this out. Your choice.

Yes! Yes! Questions! Ask yah questions, I’ll tell yah everything!

Tears had dripped down Joshua’s face then, just as they were in the present. Crouching by himself in the forest or sitting safe and sound on his bed, it made no difference. The sounds of agony and the reek of death were just as fresh.

Good. Now, word has reached me that this whole endeavor wasn’t even your idea. Not at first, at least. You were put up to this, by a Human from the Human Village, weren’t you?

At this, Joshua had stopped shaking and praying. And though he knew that he probably ought not to, he had removed his hands from his ears and listened.

Yes! Yes! Summin from dere! Came tah us, ‘e did. Sayin’ ‘e would pay us tah go aftah dah orphans! Said ‘e would t-t-take out dey deffinses, dey charms an’ shit!

Take out their defenses? Someone had really gone out of their way to stir up evil youkai against the children and had promised to leave them helpless? And it had been another Human?

Who? Who was it? What did they look like?

I dunno! Never saw ‘em face!

Oh, that is not the answer you should have given me.

No! I swear, I dun’t-AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

The sounds of the spider’s had screams mixed with a burning hiss.

I swear, I swear, please no more. Never saw ‘is face. Wore a big ol’ cloak, ‘e did. Short fella, kinda chunky. Stank o’ fear. Squeaky voice.

Joshua stood up and made for the door.

Hmmm, well, that’s not exactly a whole lot to go on. Gotta do better than that.

Dat’s all I know! Dat’s all!

He made his way through the hall and down the stairs.

You know, I think your burnt bits are distracting you. Making it hard to remember. You think if I take those hands off it’ll jog your memory?

No! I swear, dat’s all I ‘ave!

To the front door and out onto the porch.

Well, if you say so. I guess we’re done here.

Yes! Yes, please! End it!

As you wish. Hey, you know how there’s actually a couple kind of fire that you can’t recover from? That’ll burn your body so completely that those meager magics holding it together won’t be able to stitch you up?

Down the steps, onto the front path, and into the grassy lawn.

You ain’t no Dragon! YOU AIN’T NO DRAGON!

No, I’m not. Dragonfire is unfortunately in short supply around here. But I got the next best thing.

The…The Phoenix’s Daughter! Yer dah Phoenix’s Daughter! NO, PLEASE! PLE-AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

The now-dead spider’s final screams still echoing in his ears, Joshua found Mokou out in the field. She was walking all along the perimeter fence and slapping paper charms to the posts.

Upon their return, one of the first things Mokou had done was go out and inspect all of the magical wards they had set up around the estate. It had been just as they feared. All the charms had been sabotaged, rendered powerless. Which meant that even if Kana hadn’t accidentally blown herself and the others past the fence, the spiders would have been able to get in anyway. The implications of that were horrifying to think about.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Joshua approached her.

“Um, Mokou?” he said.

“Josh. Good,” Mokou said, giving him only the quickest of glances. “Come and give me a hand here.”

Honestly, at this point Joshua really didn’t want to see what was undoubtedly more bad news, but he went over to her anyway. “Look, I know we haven’t really talked much since, you know, the forest, but-”

“Then talk while you’re helping me,” Mokou said, shoving a handful of charms into his hand. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

“Huh?”

“What our charms being sabotaged means. What that spider told us means.” Though Mokou didn’t raise her voice, the anger seeping through was palpable. “This wasn’t just some dumbass youkai looking to score a meal growing too bold. This was a set-up. A hit. Eiko was basically assassinated!”

“Assassinated?” Joshua tried to wrap his head around the concept. “But by whom? Who would do something like this?”

At this, Mokou said nothing. She just shot him a meaningful look.

After a beat Joshua said, “You don’t know that for sure.”

“He’s still the number one suspect,” Mokou said.

“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean-”

“I’ve been gone digging up whatever info I could find,” Mokou said as she walked from post to post, sticking pieces of paper onto each one. “And I’ve learned a few things. Nothing conclusive, but enough to point fingers in Skinner’s direction. And you have to admit, it tracks.”

“And if it is him?”

“Well, then my job just got a whole lot simpler.”

Joshua felt the blood leaving his face. “Job?”

“Yeah. Protect the house. Protect the kids. If the reason we’re getting attacked by youkai is also the reason that all the Humans are turning against us, then that means there’s fewer people I gotta go after.”

“Go after,” Joshua repeated. “You mean, like you went after those spiders?”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Mokou said without shame. Her hand squeezed into a fist, crumbling the burnt charms to dust. “Joshua, I know why you came out here to talk to me. I know you saw a side of me you didn’t like. I get that. But understand this: you cannot make me regret what I did to those spiders. It’s not going to happen.”

Just the small reminder of what had happened to those spiders send a shiver up Joshua’s spine. “Yes, but-”

“No,” Mokou said. “No ‘but.’ No arguments. I don’t subscribe to your religion, and I don’t care about your god. I’m sorry you had to be there for that sorry business, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat. After what they did to Eiko, they deserved no less. Hell, I’d bet anything that that wasn’t the first kid they did it too either. Or Human. So save your speeches about forgiveness and mercy. I don’t care. And if I have to do the same to Skinner and every single one of his followers to prevent another one of our kids from ending up like Eiko, then so be it. They already tell stories about me. What’s one more?”

“Mokou, no,” Joshua whispered.

Annoyance flashed through Mokou’s maroon eyes. “Joshua,” she said, warning in her voice.

“No,” he said hastily. “I mean, you can’t just go kill everyone connected to him. That’ll just prove his point and set the rest against us. Besides, even if he is to blame, odds are he’s hiding this from his followers. They’re all worked up about youkai, so do you really think he’d tell them that he’s been cutting deals with them?”

“Don’t care,” Mokou said. “They come at us again, then that’s on their heads.” Then she frowned. “Though I guess you have a point. Don’t want to go making any martyrs. That never turns out well.”

Joshua wondered how much personal experience she had with that. “Just please wait until we learn more,” he said. “As for the spiders, well, I know I’m not going to change your mind about that.”

“Good.”

“But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said.

Mokou quirked a silver eyebrow. She leaned up against the fence and waited.

Joshua had been trying to work out how to word his question over and over and had yet to come up with a satisfactory way, so he decided to just say it. “Mokou, who are you?” he said. “Or rather, what are you?”

…

Satoko sat alone in the basement of her family’s orphanage, just her and Eiko Goto’s body.

When Mokou and Joshua had emerged together from the forest with their missing children draped lifelessly over Mokou’s shoulders, Satoko had feared the worst. They had been too late, the children were all dead or dying, and had only been returned to them as corpses.

To her utmost relief, Mokou had assured her that the kids weren’t dead, only unconscious, and they would be waking up in time. Satoko had felt like massive stones were being rolled off her shoulders. They were all right. Despite all the odds against them, their family was still whole, they had survived yet another outside attack.

And then she had noticed that Mokou only had six kids with her when there should have been seven. When Satoko had asked about Eiko, Mokou only looked over to Joshua, who was carrying a filthy burlap sack over one shoulder. And when Satoko had inquired about what was in the sack, Joshua had said nothing; he didn’t need to. The look in his eyes had told her all that she needed to know.

This of course was not the first time that one of the orphans of Aoki Yume’s Children’s Home had died before coming of age. It wasn’t even the first to occur in Satoko’s lifetime. Hell, it wasn’t even the first to be murdered by a youkai. Gensokyo was full of dangers, all of which were especially deadly to children. At the end of a path that led from the back door, sitting nestled in a small grove of pine trees, was their private cemetery. Satoko’s ancestors were all buried there, as were any of the other helpers that had passed away while working at the orphanage. But most of those buried there had headstones bearing two dates that had gaps between them that were altogether too short.

Satoko had had to bury too many during her life. She had buried her parents, her elder sister and her uncle. She had buried Mr. Matsuda, Miss Kyouko, Miss Lillian, and Mrs. Oa. But while all of their deaths had been sad and painful, they had at least all been due to the ravages of age.

Burying Shuna, Kenta, Eru, Tobi, and Kano had hurt so much more.

And now she was going to have to bury Eiko.

And the worst of it was that she shouldn’t have to.

The fingers of Satoko’s right hand slowly squeezed themselves into a fist and uncurled again, only to clench right back up. Mokou had found something. They hadn’t much time to talk, but Mokou had said that there was more to this than a simple youkai attack, that someone had set this up, someone Human.

The number of people who were set against the orphanage was far larger than it had any right to be, but this was beyond the pale. Wasn’t it enough that they had turned their backs on parentless children, that they had driven them away and denied them support, that they now also actively stirred up dark spirits to murder them? And the same dark spirits that the children themselves were accused of trafficking with no less! It was nothing short of monstrous!

At the very least she knew who was ultimately responsible. This had Nathaniel Skinner’s gloved fingerprints all over it.

I should just let Mokou kill him, Satoko thought bitterly. Him, and everyone else listening to him. What were they going to do about it, isolate her family even more than they already were? Keep trying to kill them? That bird had flown.

Then, as she sat in the dimly lit basement with nothing more than a dead child and her own bitter thoughts for company, Satoko heard something.

It was very faint, so faint that she wasn’t sure that she wasn’t imagining it. It was a little like a soft moan of fear, the whimper of a sleeping baby beset by nightmares.

Satoko listened intently. No, her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her. She was hearing it all right. Someone was softly crying to themselves, someone down there with her. It sounded like a little girl.

And it was coming from Eiko’s shroud-covered corpse.

Satoko slowly breathed out. Well, it was happening again. This was to be expected, after all. She had had to prepare many of those who had passed away under her care for burial herself, and dead bodies were unfortunately not as silent as one might hope. Gas got trapped, their insides shifted, and they could sometimes be alarmingly noisy.

Trapped in what? She was mostly eaten! Her stomach, her intestines, and her lungs are all gone!

The muffled weeping was getting a little louder. Satoko remained sitting where she was, staring at the still form on the table.

She had to be imagining things now, because she was quite certain that she just saw something move beneath the shroud.

Satoko slowly rose from her chair and walked over to the body. Her heart was pounding quite loudly now, and her hands had started to tremble.

This is nothing, she told herself. You’re just weary and scared. You haven’t slept well in days. Of course you wouldn’t be all there. Just let it lie.

Instead, she reached down with one hand and gently pulled the shroud away from Eiko’s face.

The whimpering stopped.

When Mokou and Joshua had shown her the remains of Eiko’s body, her face had been completely gone. Her scalp and hair were still in place, but those monsters had ripped away her lips, cheeks, and nose, exposing the skull beneath, which was smiling its red-stained grin back up at Satoko. Her eyes were gone too, no doubt plucked out and swallowed like a pair of grapes.

Satoko had stared a long time at the ghastly visage. She had seen the ravaged remains of children under her care before, and would no doubt do so again before Death claimed her in her turn, but there was something truly disturbing about the carcass now lying before her, something that terrified her. This wasn’t just some cruel turn of fate, this was deliberate cruelty against an innocent, set in motion by those who should have worked to protect her.

This was evil.

However, all of that was gone now. Eiko’s face was once again whole and unharmed. Her eyes were closed, as if in sleep.

Then Satoko gasped. Eiko’s mouth was moving, the plump lips slowly moving up and down, like she was trying to speak.

Satoko stood frozen with fear, staring unblinking as Eiko’s mouth opened ever so slightly and closed again, over and over, like she was trying to tell Satoko something, something important enough to return for from beyond the grave.

Her mouth finally fell open, and out crawled a fat-bodied black spider. It crawled up Eiko’s face, toward her eyes.

Then something knocked loudly on the basement door.

“Miss Satoko!” Melissa’s voice called from the other side. “Venga rápido! They are awake!”

Satoko couldn’t help from crying out in shock as her whole body jolted. Panting, she held a hand to her thundering heart.

The spider was gone. As was Eiko’s face. It was again a ravaged horror, the flesh ripped off, leaving her bloodstained with its rictus grin and hollow eye sockets.

Satoko hastily pulled the sheet back in place and hurried toward the door. Melissa was there, hand still raised to knock.

“Yes!” Satoko said, perhaps a bit too loudly. “Thank you!”

Melissa nodded. She was about to turn to go, but then her gaze shifting to a spot beyond Satoko. “Ah,” she said. “Is that…”

Satoko quickly moved her away from the door and shut it tight. “Don’t look, Melissa. Just leave her be.”

“Okay,” Melissa said hoarsely. “Um, Miss Satoko?”

“Yes?”

“Is it…” Melissa’s brow furrowed, as it often did when she needed to search her mind for the right word. “Regular? No. Expected?”

“Normal?” Satoko suggested.

“Right! Is it normal that Rumia and Kohta would be…angry after waking up?”

“Angry?” Satoko was puzzled. “How do you mean?”

“They seemed…angry. And…a little mean?”

“At you?”

Melissa nodded.

Sighing, Satoko laid a hand on Melissa’s shoulder. “Well, they’ve been through a lot. I imagine they’re still scared and confused, so don’t take it personally.”

“They didn’t look confused,” Melissa said after a pause. “They just looked angry.”

Satoko

…

Joshua had been bracing himself for Mokou’s response the whole time. Would be angry? Take offense? If he pressed too hard, might she even turn violent? He didn’t think so, but then again, he had been learning a lot about her that he could never have previously guessed at.

But instead, she laughed. “Oh wow, you just up and said it,” she said. “Honestly, I thought someone would’ve tried prying that out of me my first week.” Then she thought for a moment, and then amended, “Though I guess a few of the kids got real persistent with their questions, but they’re easy to wave off.”

“I’m serious though,” Joshua pressed. “Mokou, you were dead. I saw that knife bury itself in the back of your head! It went right into your brain.”

“It did,” Mokou said with a nod.

“That should have killed you!”

“It did,” Mokou said again.

“So…why are you alive? How did you get up? Are you a youkai?”

Mokou laughed again. “Well, that’s actually kind of a complicated question.”

That was not the answer Joshua had been hoping for. “How? It’s a yes or a no question!”

“Not really,” Mokou shrugged. “See, the thing you gotta understand is that ‘youkai’ is actually kind of a fluid term. We use it as a catch-all for any magical creature that came out of something that wasn’t, well, magic before, but it kind of encapsulates a whole lot of variety.”

Joshua stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. “I’m listening.”

“Well, see, you got your elemental youkai, you got the ones that come from animals, you got the ones that seem to pop out of whatever odd garbage people left lying around, you got those weirdly specific creeps, you got the ones that I guess come from abstract concepts that I’ve never really been able to figure out, you’ve got your wide variety of spirits.” Mokou drew a finger down the side of her face. “Then you got the ones that come from people. Some of them fall into that whole weirdly specific conditions category, but you also got those that manage to turn themselves into youkai on purpose. A lot of magicians do that. They got a whole ritual for it. In one go, they get eternal life and a new wellspring of magic, so you can see why it’s popular.”

“And is that what you are?”

“Nope.” Mokou straightened up and started walking. Joshua followed her. “I’m something…different.”

“Explain, please.”

The place Mokou led him to was a ring of old logs surrounding a patch of sand, in the middle of which was a smaller ring of stones. On warm summer days they would light a bonfire and all the children would circle around on the logs, listening to someone tell stories.

All the adults took turns as the storyteller, but Joshua and Mokou were the favorites. Joshua would regale the children with stories he had brought with him from the Outside World, as well as those found in the Bible. He wasn’t especially picky too. The saga of Samson was told alongside the journey of Bilbo Baggins. The legend of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves sat comfortably alongside David and Goliath.

Mokou’s tales were of a different sort, ones with fewer heroes and a great many more monsters. She would whisper of bloodthirsty spirits and twisted demons, creatures made up from the bones of the condemned that formed in executioner’s fields or severed heads that crawled about on spider legs, and almost every one of her stories had a bad ending. If Joshua’s stories made the kids laugh and cheer, hers would leave them shivering.

Joshua had a feeling that this particular tale would be no different.

Mokou sat down on the storyteller’s log, with Joshua sitting down on the log next to hers. She held out a hand, flexed her fingers, and a ball of red flame appeared in the air over her palm. A gesture, and it leapt to the ring of stones and filled them with flame, despite there being no wood to feed the fire.

“Wish we had some marshmallows,” Joshua muttered, mostly to himself.

Mokou stared blankly at him. “Some what?”

“Er, sorry. They’re, uh, a kind of campfire snack. Basically puffed up balls of sugar that you’d stick on sticks and roast in the fire.”

“Oh. I see. Outside World thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh,” Mokou said. She shrugged. “Okay. Well, it’s like one of those stories you like to tell the kids. What’d’ya call them again? Fairy…legends? Fairy myths?”

“Oh. Fairytales. Um, we don’t have fairies where I come from, but they show up a lot in really old children’s stories, so we just call old stories about magic fairytales.”

Mokou favored him with a thin smile. “You’re a fool if you think that you don’t have fairies. Or magic for that matter. They’re just not out in the open like they are here.”

“That’s probably true,” Joshua conceded.

Mokou turned her attention back to the fire. “Anyway, how do they start again? Oh right. Once upon a time, there was a terrible princess who lived on the Moon.”

Joshua had readied himself to listen a great deal and speak very little, but already Mokou had made a point that he needed to have clarified. “I’m terribly sorry, but it sounded like you just said that there was a princess who lived on the Moon.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Joshua stared. “And you mean that literally.”

“Obviously.”

“There are people. People who live on the Moon.”

“Yes, lots.” Mokou was starting to sound a little impatient.

“Oh,” Joshua said, still staring. “So they’re aliens then.”

Mokou shrugged. “Well, so are you, and so am I, if you really want to get technical about things. But yes, that would be correct.” A beat passed, and then she said, “You seem perturbed.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just that Gensokyo took a long time to get used to. Now there’s aliens from the Moon.”

Mokou sighed. “Fuck, Josh. Get used to it! There is literally a bunch of snobby assholes who live on the fucking Moon! Like, they got a whole city up there and everything! How is that in any way weirder than anything that goes on down here?”

“Not by much,” Joshua admitted. “But even so. This is new.”

Mokou rolled her eyes. “They call themselves Lunarians.”

“Lunarians?”

“Yeah. Because they’re from the Moon.”

“Oh. Well, that’s…” Joshua struggled to put his disorganized thoughts into words. “…sort of basic.”

Mokou pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “We live next to the Youkai Forest, which is a forest full of youkai. To the northeast is the Youkai Mountain, which is a mountain full of, you guessed it, more youkai.”

“Okay, I get it,” Joshua sighed.

“And we’ve been dealing with assholes from the Human Village. Hey, try to guess what kind of place that is, and what most of its population is?”

Joshua held up his palms. “All right, all right. So magical people aren’t exactly the most creative when it comes to names.”

“Can I continue my story please?”

“Go ahead,” Joshua said, motioning to her. “I’m listening.”

Mokou turned her head and spat. “Right. So, once upon a freaking long time ago, there was this spoiled rotten twit of a princess up on the Moon. And she is just the worst. Like, okay, she was far from the firstborn so she’s not getting the throne, but she’s still royalty, so she lives in luxury and privilege, never wants for anything, and yet that’s not enough for her. So she decides that she wants to live forever.”

Joshua blinked. Wow, that was a lot of unexpected vitriol. “Oh. Uh, does she?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it? I mean, the Lunarian royal family is the next best thing to immortal anyway. All this took place centuries ago, and her dad is still running things, but noooooo, that wasn’t enough for her. She wanted to be completely immortal. As if in, actually live forever instead of just a really long time. Recover from any injury, no matter how severe. And if anything did manage to off her, then…who cares? Her body would just rebuild itself, and she’d be good as new! If anything about her was good to begin with.”

“And it…worked?”

Mokou nodded. “She already had some kind of magical gift to sort of…I don’t know, freeze objects in a state of permanence. Like, if she used it on a vase or pot or whatever, then sure, you could smash it, you could chip it, you could grind it into dust, but it would just put itself back together piece by piece, heal all the cracks, and be exactly how it was. Forever. She just figured out a way to apply that power to people.”

“Um…”

“She was friends with the head scientist or whatever. And they managed to brew up a kind of potion from her power that you could drink. And hey presto! Immortal.”

“I guess there’s no point in asking if it worked.”

“If it didn’t, then her dad would have just executed her and saved us all a lot of trouble,” Mokou said with a derisive snort.

That gave Joshua a start. “Execute his own daughter?”

“We’re talking about a rich and arrogant king with like a double-digit number of kids,” Mokou said flatly. “Like, a high double-digit.”

“That’s…huh.” Joshua shook his head. “You know, there once was a time would I would find the story of Moon people turning themselves immortal to be a silly children’s tale, but now it just seems not the least bit implausible.”

“Right? But they didn’t like that for some reason, and gave the two of them the boot. So they went and hid in Japan.”

“How long ago?”

M: =tells him=

Joshua’s mouth fell open. “Mother of God.”

Mokou tossed a stick into her self-sustaining fire. “I doubt it. She never had kids, and even if she did, any offspring to pop out of her would be just as profane as she is.”

Joshua hesitated. As strange as Mokou’s story was, he felt that he had figured out where it was going, and one point in particular was making him uncomfortable. “Mokou, don’t talk of yourself like that. Regardless of what you might have done, that doesn’t make you-”

Mokou made a disgusted noise deep in her throat. “The hell? Josh! I’m not talking about me! I’m not the fucking Moon princess!”

“What? B-But I thought-”

“Good fucking gods, no!” Mokou slapped her palm across her forehead. “This isn’t my story yet, it’s just the background! I wasn’t even born when all that happened.”

“Oh.” Joshua winced with embarrassment. “Um, sorry for assuming.”

Mokou waved his apology off. “Whatever. So yeah, they got kicked off their rock and ended up on ours. And because they weren’t really the kind to think things through, they forgot to bother with the whole ‘laying low thing,’ it didn’t take long for word to get around that there’s a super-hot immortal Moon princess in town, and before they knew it she was the most eligible bachelorette in the land. Men were lining up outside her door, all seeking her hand in marriage.”

“Now this is really starting to sound like a fairytale,” Joshua remarked.

“Well, I’m sure she’s inspired a few of those.”

“Something tells me that you’re not exactly fond of this Moon princess.”

Mokou laughed at that. “What gave it away? The sound of absolutely contempt in my voice, or the way every single one of my muscles clenches tighter than a ferret’s sphincter whenever I mention her?

“Er, all of the above?”

A long silence fell between them. Mokou continued to stare into the fire, her body unmoving, all except for the fingers of her right hand, which clenched and unclenched over and over. “Yeah, I hate her,” she said at last. “Like, a lot.”

“Why?”

Again Mokou fell silent, and Joshua sat and waited.

So far Mokou’s tone while telling her story had been contemptuous, mocking, and irreverent. But when she finally started to speak again, her voice was soft, low, and contemplative. “Once upon a time, there was a little girl born to the prestigious Fujiwara family. Now, this girl loved her family very much. Her father was strong and kind, her mother sweet and gentle, her brothers loving and encouraging and great fun to be around. And her family’s wealth and influence meant that she wanted for very little.” Mokou took a deep breath, and it caught a little in her throat. “But this girl had a problem, one that cast a shadow over her happiness as she grew older. And that was that her family kept dying.”

Mokou stopped talking. Joshua wondered if he ought to say something, to inquire further. But no. This was her story, and he was going to let her tell it at her pace.

“The first to go was her mother,” Mokou said at last. “Thanks to a hereditary wasting disease, this girl watched her grow weaker and weaker every year, slowly breaking down until she couldn’t even leave her bed. Every second she was in constant pain, and could barely drink water without coughing up blood. And her father wasted away with his wife, but in spirit rather than body.”

The fire had started to change. Though it burned on still despite a lack of a fuel source, it was growing lower and darker, and it was producing far more smoke.

Smoke of what? Joshua wondered, but he felt it wise not to ask.

“The next was her brother,” Mokou continued. “You see, the girl’s family had a problem. An enemy. Another prestigious family was actively trying to destroy them?”

“Why?” Joshua had to ask.

Mokou waved off his question. “It doesn’t matter. Something stupid, from before even her father was born, and it just kept escalating like those things do, until it was like there wasn’t a time when they hadn’t been enemies. But for most of the time, it was just them trying to, you know, humiliate one another, sabotage each other’s business plans, maybe a surprise raid or two, nothing really out of the ordinary for that time.” She took another deep, shuddering breath. “And then one day they received a box, a box with no note or message or anything. And in it was her brother’s head.”

Joshua stared into the smoke so he wouldn’t have to see the look on Mokou’s face.

“Well, with one wife and one son down, that was pretty much half of her father’s family,” Mokou continued. “And since, you know, the disease that murdered her mother was hereditary, and only hit the women, she was next, and there was nothing she could do about it. Even before she became a woman, she could feel it growing inside her, like a hungry black pit deep inside her, just eating her from the inside-out. Soon it would be three of them gone, and with the Sonozikas pressing them harder and harder, who knew when her last brother would wake up with a knife in his heart or take in a mouthful of poison?”

Joshua started at that. “The Sonozikas? Wait, you mean-”

“The same,” Mokou said with a bitter laugh. “Yeah, here’s a spoiler: they ended up winning. They’re still around and running the Human Village, whereas the Fujiwara family is only around because its remaining member literally can’t die.” She shook her head. “Anyway, to move things along, the girl found out that there was someone very special living among them, a bonafide Princess from the fucking Moon, and an immortal one at that. Beautiful, powerful, forever young, and completely and utterly safe from things like disease and assassinations and slipping and cracking her head on the stones and having her guts ripped out, her brain flash-cooked, her head taken right off her shoulders, her entire body reduced to ash or sliced into tiny pieces and spread all the way across-”

“Mokou!” Joshua cried. “Please, I don’t need to know those details!”

Mokou laughed again. “Yeah, sorry. I guess you wouldn’t. Anyway, word got out that this princess was being courted by everything in Japan that had two legs and a functional penis, and there was supposed to be some kind of quest, a sort of wander the country collecting these rare treasures, and the one to bring them all back would win her hand. And the girl convinced her father to give it a shot.”

“Um…” Joshua frowned. “Ah, I’m sorry if this is out of line, but…”

“Why?” Mokou shrugged. “Well, I didn’t know better then. I just heard ‘immortal’ and ‘princess,’ and felt that if my father was to remarry, then it ought to be someone he wouldn’t worry about losing, you know? And I was kind of hoping that she would share her secret of immortality with him and my brother. Not that it ended up mattering, as he ended up coming home a year later, empty-handed and humiliated.”

“Oh.”

“The quest was a scam,” Mokou said flatly. “Pure and simple. A complete wild goose chase. Turns out, the princess already had all of those treasures locked away in her closet, and was just sending those men off just so they would leave her alone, without caring that she was also sending them into some of the most dangerous places in Japan. See, this was before Gensokyo took in all the gods and monsters and youkai and the like, so the country was a lot like Gensokyo is now, and most of those who went on this quest never came back. My father was one of the lucky ones to have survived. Too bad the journey destroyed his health and drained his wealth so that he had to sell off most of his land just to avoid total ruin. And he didn’t forget that it was me that told him to do it.”

Joshua had nothing to say to that at all.

“So yeah, total disaster,” Mokou said. “On the bright side, it got the Sonozikas off our back, seeing how they were the ones who bought most of those properties. I guess they felt that doing so meant that they won. Which, okay, it did.” She clicked her tongue. “Anyway, a couple years go by, and the girl’s just getting weaker and weaker. She tried to stave it off, but with her family’s wealth gone, they couldn’t afford the same treatments that kept her mother alive as long as they did, and even if they did, it wasn’t likely that her father would have bought them.”

“That’s terrible,” Joshua said softly. “To just let one’s own daughter waste away like that.”

“Whatever,” Mokou said. “But then they heard an interesting bit of news. Turns out that the Emperor was one of those seeking the Moon Princess’s hand, and he just plain refused her bullshit quest and wasn’t interested in taking no for an answer. So hey, good for him. But she said no anyway, and that made him angry. And I guess that she figured having the ruler of the country you’re trying to hide in would make one’s eternal life kind of difficult, she tried for making a kind of peace offering. She gifted him with the same potion that made her immortal in the first place.”

“Oh,” Joshua said. “Oh. Well, that’s quite the gift.”

“Maybe, but he didn’t think so, seeing how it just made him even more angry. So much so that he tried to destroy it.”

“Er…why?”

Mokou shrugged. “Fuck if I know. Maybe he thought it was a trick, maybe it’s because he was already an old man and the potion didn’t give you your youth back, so being stuck like that forever would wear off its novelty pretty fast. But anyway, even though he might have been smarter than the rest of her would-be fiancées, he was just as dramatic, because instead of just pouring it onto the ground and sending a bunch of his men to drag her back in chains, he decides to straight-up send it off in this grand caravan and have it thrown into a live volcano!”

Just when it seemed that Mokou’s story started to sound at least a little grounded in reality, it took another fantastical turn. “Okay,” Joshua said at last. “Why a volcano?”

“Fuck if I know!” Mokou said again with a dramatic gesture into the sky with both hands. “He up and died not long after, so I never got the chance to ask him. But whatever, you don’t pull a stunt like that without wanting people to know about it, so of course word reaches the girl that the secret of the Moon Princess’s immortality is headed across the land to be thrown into a fiery mountain. So she decided to steal it.”

“Right,” Joshua nodded. “Because of the disease.”

Mokou shook her head. “Nah, it wasn’t going to be for me. At that point I already resigned myself to death. But with my family half gone and the rest disgraced and me being dishonored in my father’s eyes, then fuck it, what did I have to lose? Maybe if I got that much for him, so that he could be immortal, or my remaining brother, or his new wife if he managed to get one, then maybe I’d be redeemed in his eyes. That, or I would die in the attempt, but honestly I didn’t care about that.”

“Well, obviously you succeeded,” Joshua remarked. “I mean, not in the way you were planning, but you did manage to steal the potion from the caravan.”

“No shit,” Mokou said, giving him a sidelong glance.

“How?” Joshua asked. “I mean, I imagine it would have been guarded.”

Mokou didn’t answer. She just stared long and hard into the fire, the look on her face completely blank.

“Mokou?”

Several more seconds stretched past, and when Mokou finally spoke, her voice was rough. “You don’t need to know that. Just know that things went sideways pretty badly, and by the end of it, the girl was lying in the road, potion in hand, while she bled into the dust.”

“Oh.” Joshua wondered exactly what had happened to make Mokou clam up like that, especially after having discussed several other things of a sensitive and personal nature.

“Well, this girl was now scared,” Mokou continued. “She knew she was to die soon, but for some reason the thought of dying now, before when the disease was to take her naturally, terrified her. And in her pain and panic she did something terrible.” A slow, thin smile spread across her face like a knife wound, one completely devoid of humor and joy. “She drank the potion herself.”

“Anyone else would have done the same,” Joshua said.

Mokou didn’t seem to have heard him. “It was only supposed to be a sip. Just the smallest of sips, not enough to turn her immortal, but enough to heal her hurts, maybe even burn the disease out of her! But the second the potion touched her tongue, she couldn’t stop! Three quick gulps, and it was gone!” She closed her eyes. “And then the pain started. It was like she was being immolated from the inside out. You see, the potion had not been designed with normal Humans in mind. The girl was not some long-lived Lunarian Royal, she was just a normal girl with a weak body, and it wasn’t strong enough to withstand the changes the potion was trying to bring upon her. Her hurts were healed, yes, and it did burn the illness right out of her, but everything else burned as well.”

To Joshua’s alarm, Mokou had begun to burn as well. It was small, but tiny, flickering flames had appeared on the back of her hands and her shoulders. She didn’t seem to notice though. Her clothes weren’t even browning.

“Her organs failed over and over, only to being forced back into working condition, only to fail again. Her bones and muscles dissolved, only to reform in their own soup. Her skin was sloughed right off of her, only to be replaced again and again. Blood poured from her like a river, but never seemed to run out.”

Now the fire was spreading up her arms. Joshua was torn between trusting Mokou’s claims of being fireproof and saying something to warn her. Certainly, everything she had said and done had given him every indication of her not having anything to fear from the flames, but that sort of thing was hard to recall when your friend is literally self-immolating right in front of your eyes. “It seemed like it would never end, that she was cursed to remain in that perpetual state of destruction and rebirth, writhing in agony on that dirt road forever.” Then, as the flame rose up to wreathe her head like an Angel’s halo, she turned to smile at Joshua. “And that is when it came to her.”

Joshua started. “What?”

“The Phoenix,” Mokou said. Her voice had something Joshua had never heard from her before: reverence. “The fire bird of the morning. At first she thought that she had imagined it, that it was just her own pain-addled mind conjuring up delusions, that the flame she was seeing was her own eyeballs boiling in their own juices. But then she heard it speak inside her head. It told her that she had taken something not meant for her, and she was unable to handle its power. That her imperfect body could not adapt and would never again be whole, unless she accepted its help.”

“Help?” Joshua swallowed and scooted a few feet from her. Mokou might be unharmed by the fire, but he had no such protection, and he was starting to feel the heat radiate off her body.

“It would bind itself to her,” Mokou said, still oblivious to the fact that she was very much on fire now. “You see, it was growing old. Phoenixes are creatures of rebirth. They are born, they grow old, and they die, incinerating themselves in their own flame. But from their own ashes they are born anew, young again. But it had done so too many times, and with every rebirth it lost a little more of itself. It was too weak to continue the cycle, just as the girl was too weak. But together, their respective, imperfect forms of immortality might stabilize one another. They might metamorphose into something whole.”

“So, you accepted?” Joshua said. He tried to make the question sound casual, but that was very difficult to do when the person you’re talking to was burning like a torch.

“Well, I was screaming in the throes of unbelievable agony, so I was exactly in a position to refuse,” Mokou responded. “But as I lay there suffering, it entered me. And then the pain really began. Its fire scorched me. And I don’t just mean my body, that was burnt up in seconds. I mean it scorched me to my now immortal soul, burning away every single drop of mortality and impermanence within me. Time ceased to have meaning. Seconds stretched into unbearable, indescribable years. And through it all, all I could do was wish for death, anything to make the pain stop.” She paused for a moment, and then the fires covering her changed, turning from scarlet to gold. “And then my body started to grow back. In the heart of that inferno, my bones forced themselves into existence, reforming and joining together. My organs regrew and reconnected, my meat and ligaments puffing up like tumors, and then skin crawled all over that horror, sealing it all inside. And unlike before, it wasn’t destroyed again.”

She paused again. In her silence, Joshua was finding it very hard not to stare at her, and it wasn’t just due to the absurd novelty of her being on fire.

Mokou had always been lovely, but Joshua had never thought of her in those terms. For one, until that very hour, he had always thought that he was old enough to be her father, but now he knew that the age difference was weighed far, far, far in the opposite direction, and to an absolutely ridiculous extent at that. For another, even if they had been around the same age, there had always been something that felt dangerous about Mokou, something beyond her rough nature and mysterious past, something that told her that she was someone to be kept at arms’ distance.

Joshua had of had always cared for her as a friend and a member of their strange family, and he knew that she loved the children as much as he did and would do anything to protect them, but he knew the look of someone who had stepped onto a bad path and walked it for a long time. He had seen that look many times back during his time with the Military, and when he had been in rehab. Hell, he had worn it himself for quite a while. And while he always did what he could to help those who had it to leave that path as he did, he knew when someone had a self-destructive nature, and Mokou most certainly did; he had seen that about her even before she had revealed just how thoroughly he had underestimated the extent of the damage.

But in that moment, as she sat there bathed in golden light, softly describing being transformed on both a physical and spiritual level, she was the most beautiful thing Joshua had ever seen. And not in any desirable or sexual way; she looked almost angelic, an ethereal being far beyond his comprehension that a lowly mortal like him had no business breathing the same air as.

Which, when one thought about it, was exactly what she was.

“It was the weirdest damn thing,” Mokou said. ‘I was lying there, naked in a dirt road, staring up at the sky. I could barely remember my own name or what had happened to me. The pain was gone, and yet it…wasn’t. I still felt the heat, but it didn’t hurt anymore. It was like hot coals had been sealed up in my stomach, but my stomach had been reinforced with steel, if that makes any sense. And I was changed, changed and made to never change again.”

Then she sighed, and the flames suddenly snuffed out all at once, both the ones covering her body and the burning sphere in the center of the circle, and she was just plain old Fujiwara no Mokou again, the prickly, yet well-meaning, cook of the Aoki Yume’s Children’s Home. “Anyway, that’s why I’m immortal. The end.”

Joshua was already reeling from everything that he had seen and heard over the last hour or so, but this completely knocked him off his gourd. “Wait, what?” he gawked. “But what happened next? Where’s the rest of the story? What did you do after that? What happened with your father, or the Sonozikas, or the Moon princess? What have you been doing all this time, and-”

“No.”

“No?”

Mokou stood up and brushed off her pants. “I told you why I’m immortal. I told you why I didn’t die, and that was more than I usually like to tell. Everything else, everything I’ve done since then, is my own damn business. So, the end.”

Joshua looked to the scorch mark in the ground and the smoke rising from it. He still had an endless bounty of questions, but now that he thought of it, Mokou was right. This was none of his business. Her story was obviously heartbreaking, painful, and horrifyingly long, and she had told as much as she felt comfortable telling.

To be truthful, Joshua felt like he was intruding just by having heard as much as he had. He had known that the mysterious young woman with the rough-around-the-edges personality that the kids had dragged in nearly dead (though he now supposed that she had actually been dead) from the snow had a dark past, but he had never imagined anything on this scale. His friend was literally one of those tragic monsters of legend, the kind who had started off as a simple Human only to be doomed to wander the earth forever due to one, avoidable mistake. She was of the same sort as the Wandering Jew, Stingy Jack, or even Cain himself. Who was he to demand anything from her?

Furthermore, how was he supposed to treat her now? Did they just go back to the way things were and never bring it up again? As tight-lipped as Mokou had suddenly become, Joshua knew that the rest of the story would reflect poorly on her. She had killed people, of that he had no doubt. She had probably killed a great many people, and a lot of them had probably been innocents, people who had been in the wrong place and the wrong time.

Furthermore, he knew that she had done other things. Her torture of those spiders had been cold, efficient, and spoke of a wealth of experience. The few bits she had dropped about the Moon Princess, wherever she was, were nothing short of horrific, and he was willing to bet that those talents had also been employed against those who couldn’t simply regenerate from death and dismemberment.

By any decent metric, Mokou was a monster, one comparable to Vlad the Impaler or Jack the Ripper.

And yet…

“Go ahead,” Mokou said.

“Eh?”

One arm crossing her chest to rest on the opposite elbow, Mokou rolled the wrist of the other. “Decent guy like you hearing a story like mine probably changes how you see me. And I think you’ve put together some of the pieces of the parts I didn’t tell you. So tell me, oh Man of God: have I earned my damnation? Is there something wrong with the universe that I’m never going to see it, that I’m going to be walking the earth long after Gensokyo is gone, after the Outside World had crumbled away, after the rest of humanity is extinct, that I will see the Heat Death of the universe and what lays beyond it? I know a thing or two about your God, as well as all the others, and most of them have some sort of endgame in mind for everything. But no matter what it is, I’m going to come through it, and no matter what perfect world comes out of it, it’ll have my soiled feet walking it.” She grinned. “Kind of seems a little unjust, don’t it?”

Joshua breathed in and out. Wow, this was so very much above his paygrade. He thought in it, letting the various parts of his mind and heart argue it out. As he did, Mokou stood and waited.

Joshua breathed in and out. Wow, this was so very much above his paygrade. He thought in it, letting the various parts of his mind and heart argue it out.

Unfortunately, nothing inside him could come up with a satisfactory response. This was so far above him that his mind felt crushed just by thinking about it. If he had learned that Mokou had been a murderer or something similar, then yes, that would probably change the complexion of their relationship, but not in any meaningful way, as he had known many killers and worse in his time.

“It’s okay,” Mokou said at last.

“Huh?”

“You don’t know what to make of me. You don’t know what to think.” She nodded solemnly. “It’s okay. I understand. It’s too much to take in all at once.”

Joshua stared down at the ground. “Mokou, I-”

“I’m a monster,” Mokou said. “The kind they make stories of, one as dark and evil to ever wander the black corners of the world. I’ve always known that. But I want you to understand something, Josh. Even if you end up hating me, I’m still your monster. Yours, the kids, Satoko’s, Haruna’s, Shion’s, Haruhi’s, all of you. I’m on your side, and I swear if anything tries to hurt any one of you again, then they have to go through me first. And they’ll find that a lot more difficult than they bargained for.”

It was a nice sentiment, but Joshua was still unable to wrap his head around the situation. “Okay,” he said. “But why?”

Mokou quirked an eyebrow. “Why what?”

“Why…Why do you care? Why do you care so much about these kids? Why do you care about us? It just doesn’t make any sense!”

“Ouch, man. That hurts.” Mokou stuck her hands in her pockets and rocked back and forth on her heels. “And say what you want about me, but I’ve never purposefully gone after anyone innocent, especially not kids. That’s a level of evil that I always swore I’d never fall to. Simple, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not!” Joshua said, wringing his hands in agitation.

“Why not?”

“I…” In his struggles to articulate his thoughts, Joshua suddenly recalled a terrible story his platoon captain used to tell, a story that Joshua had always found incredibly troubling, mainly because he knew it was true. “Okay, you told your story to make your point, so here’s one to make mine: once upon a time, there was a soldier walking through a valley where the enemy had destroyed a village, and he find the body of a little girl lying on the side of the road, run through with a sword.

“Now this soldier feels like someone had punched him right in the gut, and he falls to his knees and takes the girl’s body in his arms as he cries. ‘Why, God? Why would you let something so terrible happen to such a beautiful child?’

“But the soldier still has a mission to do, and there is no time for burials, so he leaves the girl and continues on his way. Soon he finds two more dead little girls, their heads cut off, and he stops and starts weeping again, condemning the cruelness of the world.

“Soon he finds two dead little boys and three dead little girls, and he again cries for them, but he doesn’t stop. A few minutes later he comes across a full dozen dead children, and though he shakes his head at the terrible sight, he neither stops nor cries.

“And finally, before he’s left the valley, he comes across an entire elementary school, all of the children executed, their bodies just left for the flies. And he barely even looks at them before continuing on his way.”

“Damn,” Mokou said after he was done. “And I thought my story was gruesome. You trying to one-up me here or something?”

Joshua slowly breathed out. “My point is, you’ve lived hundreds upon hundreds of years. You’ve seen so much dead: men, women, and children. You’ve also caused quite a bit of it too. Normal people like us, we must be like mayflies compared you to, gone in a blink of an eye. So why do these kids matter so much, when by your standards they’ll be gone before you notice.”

At this, Mokou’s face turned serious, all hints of wryness falling away. “Good question,” she said. “Really good question. And I guess…Okay, look: I may be a monster, but the two years I’ve spent here with you guys, cooking for you, working with you, helping you, playing with the kids and everything is the first time for as long as I can remember that I felt like…like something other than a monster. Does that make sense.”

Joshua stared up at her. Then he slowly nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it does.”

“Good,” Mokou said. “So at least we know where we stand. But for now-”

Suddenly some kind of clamor was being raised over at the house. Joshua heard people shouting and running, and then Shion started calling to them from the porch.

“Hey!” she yelled. “You two stop slouching about and get over here! The kids are waking up!”

Joshua and Mokou exchanged looks of surprise. Then the two bolted toward the house.

…

“Kids!”

Rumia and Kohta started at the sudden exclamation. They looked up to see Miss Satoko standing in the door of the sick room, her crease-lined face lighting up and her eyes wet with tears.

“Oh, thank the gods, you’re all right!” Miss Satoko practically fell to her knees in front of the children and threw her arms around Rumia and Kohta both. A little taken back by the sudden display of affection, Rumia glanced uncertainly at Kohta from over Miss Satoko’s shoulder, who shot her the same look back. Then the two gingerly wrapped their arms around the woman in return.

“I was…I was so afraid…” Miss Satoko whispered. “When you disappeared, I thought I would never…” Then she drew back and smiled at the two. “But you’re here.” She cupped their faces with her hands. “You’re all right.”

Rumia flinched at the touch. For some reason, her palm just felt way too warm. “I’m…we’re…”

“Shhh.” Miss Satoko pressed a finger to Rumia’s lips. It hurt. “It’s okay. We can talk later.” She leaned forward to kiss the top of Rumia’s forehead. “Just rest for now. It’s enough to know you’re alive.”

Rumia instinctively drew back from the kiss, but stopped herself. What was she doing? Miss Satoko kissed their foreheads all the time! Still, it felt…wrong this time. Her lips felt hot, like a branding iron was being pressed against her brow. Still, she gritted her teeth and bore it.

“Miss Satoko?” Kohta said. His voice still sounded weirdly creaky and hollow. “W-What about…” He coughed. “What about the others? They won’t wake up.”

“Don’t worry, they’re fine,” Miss Satoko said. “It’s just that…” She made a face. “Well, the spiders stung them, you see. They still need to get it out of their systems. But they should be waking up soon.”

Rumia cast a dubious look over to Kana, who was still breathing shallowly.

“Okay, but how did we get…home?” Kohta said. “Because I don’t…”

Miss Satoko stroked his hair. “Mr. Joshua and Miss Mokou found you in the forest,” she said. “They said you were lying unconscious, like you had fallen asleep, and they carried you back.”

“Miss Mokou’s back?” Rumia whispered. It still hurt a little to talk.

Miss Satoko nodded. “She got back right after you two went off. As soon as she found out what happened she went right after you.”

“Oh.” Rumia’s face twisted up as she tried to put all of her scattered thoughts in order. “Uh, are we…in trouble?”

That made Miss Satoko laugh a little. “No, Rumia. I mean, normally, yes you would be, because what you did was very foolish and dangerous. But I think what you went through was more than enough punishment. I’m just glad you’re still alive.”

“Alive,” Kohta whispered. He suddenly sat straight up. “Alive! Miss Satoko. It’s Eiko! She-”

The smile vanished from Miss Satoko’s face, to be replaced with naked pain. “I know, I know,” she said hoarsely. “Mokou told me everything.”

“What?”

“Miss Mokou and Mr. Joshua…found her too. They brought her home as well.”

“Brought her…you mean her body?”

Miss Satoko swallowed and nodded. “Yes.”

“But…the spiders! They would’ve-”

“The spiders won’t be a problem anymore.”

Rumia, Kohta, and Miss Satoko all looked to the door. Miss Mokou was there, leaning against the doorpost with her hands in her pockets.

“Wh-What?” Rumia said.

“You don’t have to worry about the spiders,” Miss Mokou said. “I took care of them.”

“Mokou,” Miss Satoko said. “Maybe this had better-”

“Can we have a few moments?” Miss Mokou said.

“I don’t think-”

“I won’t be long. Just need to ask a few questions.”

“It’s okay,” Rumia told Miss Satoko. “I’d like to talk to her.”

“Me too,” Kohta said.

Miss Satoko hesitated, but then nodded. “Okay. Don’t take too long.” She kissed them both again. Rumia winced when Miss Satoko’s lips touched her forehead

She passed by Miss Mokou, stopped, and laid a hand on the other woman’s shoulder. Miss Mokou gave her fingers a brief squeeze before she left.

“Well,” Miss Mokou said as she entered the room and closed the door, leaving them alone with her. “Sure am glad you two are up and about at least. Feel all right?”

“No,” Rumia said.

“Didn’t think so.” Miss Mokou sat in front of them, legs folded and hands on her knees. “Apparently you two snuck out the moment you could. Didn’t wait for any grown-ups at all, just plunged into the forest yourselves, right?”

“Yes,” Kohta said.

“Heh. Well, that was fucking stupid, but based on what I’ve learned, if you hadn’t, someone else would’ve probably died too. So, you know, good job.”

Rumia hesitated, and then asked. “M-Miss Mokou. The…spiders.”

“What about them?”

“Did you really, you know…”

Miss Mokou nodded. “I did. Your little firework show told me pretty plain where to find them. Found the four of them trying to put out the fires with Eiko’s body still on the table. That told me enough.”

“But…they’re youkai. They’ll come back.”

“No, they won’t,” Mokou said with absolute surety. “Youkai can come back from most things, but there are a few kinds of death that keep them. And I so happen to know at least one of them.”

Rumia felt a chill sweep up her back. “What did you do to them?”

A spark flickered in the dark pupils of Mokou’s maroon eyes. “I burned them alive.” She rotated her right wrist around on her knee, moving the palm upward. A hovering ball of flame suddenly flashed into existence over her hand. “But first I broke them. Slowly. And with great deliberation. I broke them, I hurt them, I made them scream, and after they had told me everything I wanted to know, I set a fire deep inside them that roasted them until their flesh had crisped and their fat melted and even their bones turned to ash.” She closed her fingers shut, snuffing out the flame. “Isn’t as good stopping them from taking you in the first place, but at the very least I made their meal more expensive than they were willing to pay.”

“Good,” rasped a weak-sounding voice.

Rumia turned to see Haruko struggling to sit up. Her former nemesis looked pretty bad, not as bad as Kana, but she was still gaunt and haggard. Her long dark hair, usually so carefully brushed and cleaned, was a nightmare of oily knotted strands that hung in clumps around her face.

“Good,” Haruko said again. “They deserve it.”

“How long have you been awake?” Kohta asked.

Haruko coughed from deep inside her chest. “Few minutes,” she muttered. “When Miss Satoko was still here.” She looked up at Miss Mokou. “You brought Eiko back home, right?”

Miss Mokou nodded. “Me and Joshua did. We were just waiting for you to wake up before we put her to rest.”

Tears shown in Haruko’s eyes. She blinked several times, sniffed, and wiped her eyes with her arm. “Th-Thank you.”

A heavy silence passed between them. Then Miss Mokou sighed and said, “But that wasn’t the only reason I was waiting for you to wake up. See, I learned most of what there is to know about your rescue from the spiders, but not what happened after. They said that they stopped following you when you went into a place called the bone grove, which had something called the black circle. That’s where I found you, all of you. You were all lying lifeless just outside the bone grove. What happened?”

“The…bone grove?” Rumia repeated.

“Yes. A place filled with black trees that had been turned to stone, that had skeletons fused into their trunks. And its center had this circle of black sand.” Miss Mokou shook her head. “Damn. I thought I had seen every ugly corner of Gensokyo, but that was a new one, even for me. Even so, nothing happened the whole time I was in there. I tried setting the trees on fire, but they wouldn’t burn. I tried melting the sand, but it just swallowed up my fire like it was nothing, and that does not happen. But I felt like there was something in there, something that was deliberately locking me out. So I need to know what happened to you all in there.”

“Nothing,” Rumia, Kohta, and Haruko all said in unison.

Miss Mokou narrowed her eyes. “Well. That response was…quick. And unanimous. And obviously not true.”

“Nothing happened!” Haruko insisted.

“Oh, yeah? So, what, you just fell unconscious in the middle of the Youkai Forest for several minutes without anything picking you off? The spider chasing you just up and decided to leave you there for no reason?”

“Yes!” Rumia said crossly. Why couldn’t Miss Mokou just drop it? It wasn’t any of her business!

“Huh,” Miss Mokou said. “I see.”

Then, moving quicker than a striking snake, she reached up with both hands to grip Rumia and Kohta by the chins.

Rumia tried to recoil, but the fingers holding onto her jaw were too strong. And if the touch of Miss Satoko’s hand had been uncomfortably warm, Miss Mokou’s felt hotter than a cattle brand. It was searing into her skin, so much so that she could practically smell her own flesh sizzling.

“STOP IT!” Kohta screamed.

“LET US GO!” Rumia agreed. Haruko lunged forward and shoved Miss Mokou in the chest.

Miss Mokou didn’t budge, but she did raise a single eyebrow. “Well,” she said. “That answers that.”

Then she let them go.

The three of them scrambled away from her, putting as much distance between them and Miss Mokou. “What do you think you’re doing?” Kohta demanded. “Don’t touch us!”

Miss Mokou said nothing. She just calmly looked from one face to the other, her narrowed eyes piercing into theirs.

Then the doorknob started rattling. “Mokou?” Miss Satoko said from the other side. “Mokou, what was that? What are you doing?”

“Huh,” Miss Mokou said.

“Open the door! Mokou?”

Miss Mokou stood up. “Well, that’s everything I need to know. You three get some rest. Awake or not, you’re definitely not fully recovered.”

“Yes, we are!” Haruko protested. “We’re fine!”

“Uh-huh. Sure you are.” Miss Mokou walked over to the door and opened it, revealing not only Miss Satoko, but the rest of the grown-ups as well, all crowded outside the door.

Without saying anything, Mokou left the room and shut the door, leaving the six of them alone.

…

“Mokou, what the hell was that?” Shion hissed. “What were you doing to them?”

“Exactly,” Satoko said, a cold look in her eyes. “You have five seconds to explain why they were screaming before I-”

Mokou held up a finger, silencing them. “No,” she said. “Not here. Haruna’s room. Now.”

Haruna folded her arms. “Kid, you better explain yourself right now.”

“Not. Here,” Mokou repeated. “Head to Haruna’s room and lock the door.”

“Mokou, you were hurting them!” Joshua said. “They were screaming, and-”

Mokou then noticed something. She held up a palm, silencing him, as she turned her attention over to the stairs.

Practically every child in the orphanage not currently in the sick room were clustered around the top steps, staring intently at them.

“OUTSIDE!” Mokou roared.

The kids cleared out faster than she had ever seen them do. She listened as they ran, hopped, and in some cases tripped their way downstairs and out the front door.

When the thumping stopped and the door slammed shut, she turned to the rest of the orphanage’s staff.

“Okay, so now can we go to Haruna’s room so I can explain why we are now all in very real danger?” she said.

That did it. Their looks of confusion and anger turned to ones of confusion and fear. “Okay,” Haruna said. “But why my room? Why not yours?”

“Because my window still has a big hole in it from my hasty exit earlier, and yours has the thickest walls.”

“Well, I’m a light sleeper,” Haruna said, and a bit indignantly at that. “And there’s always some child walking the halls every night.”

“Right, but this isn’t something I want anyone listening in on, so if we could…” Mokou motioned down the hall with both hands.

The six of them quietly filed through the hall and into Haruna’s room. It was a very nice place for such a rough-looking woman, decorated with bright colors and several chalk drawings she had done herself.

“All right,” Satoko said once Haruna had locked the door. “We’re here. Now tell me what you did to them, and maybe I’ll consider not expelling you right now.”

“I grabbed their chins to get a good look at their eyes,” Mokou said. She pinched her own jaw between her thumb and index finger as demonstration. “Like this.”

“That’s it?” Shion said. “But they sounded like you were burning them!”

“That’s because that’s how it felt. Satoko, did you notice how they flinched when you kissed them?”

Satoko stared blankly at her. “Did they?”

“They did. In fact, I’d say they were scared of being touched at all.

“Mokou, we’re begging you,” Shion said. “Say things that make sense!”

Mokou sighed. Oh well, she was in for it already. “Fine. I already told Satoko and Joshua all this, so look them up for the details, but the long and short of it, I’m immortal.”

Haruhi made noise that wasn’t quite a gasp and not quite a hiccup, but was very similar to both.

“Yeah, so to just preemptively answer your questions, no, I’m not a youkai,” Mokou said. “I’m Human, but several hundred years ago I drank a magic potion that made so I’m going to live forever. And I later got super-charged with a whole lot of fire, so that’s what that is all about. But anyway, I’ve been around a long time, and know how to recognize certain things-”

“Excuse me?” Haruhi squeaked. “Uh, I know this is very important, but can we go back to the part where you’re immortal and apparently hundreds of years old?”

Shion shrugged. “Makes sense to me.”

“Well, yeah,” Haruna said. “I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“You two knew?” Haruhi said.

“Well, no, but I figured it had to be something like that,” Shion said.

“I did,” Haruna said.

“You did?” Mokou said.

“Sure. I mean, I’ve been hearing stories about the Daughter of the Phoenix my whole life, one that’s supposed to be wandering the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. Then all of a sudden the kids drag in a frozen corpse that is all sorts of dead, except no it’s breathing again in minutes, and all of a sudden those stories stop.” Haruna shrugged. “All in all, it wasn’t hard to put together.”

“Huh,” Mokou said thoughtfully. “Well, when you put it like that…”

Haruhi held up her hands and stomped off to a nearby chair. “I need to sit down.”

“So…you’re really that old, huh?” Shion asked.

“Yeah,” Mokou said. “I’ve been around basically forever, and probably will still be around after everything’s gone.”

Shion thoughtfully rubbed her chin. “How much of forever are we talking? Like, since the beginning of time, or…”

“Oh, no,” Mokou snickered. “I was exaggerating. But about a hundred years or so before Gensokyo was created.”

Haruhi jolted in her chair. “You were born before Gensokyo was created?!”

“Yeah, and let me tell you, that was a hell of a news story.”

“A-And you told…” Haruhi pressed a palm to her forehead. “Okay, I get why you told Satoko, but why Joshua? I mean, no offense, Josh. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“None taken,” Joshua said. “And, well, I just, you know, asked her.”

Haruhi stared at him for a good long time before nodding. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

Satoko sighed. “Well, this is all very fascinating, but it’s distracting from the main point. Mokou, continue.”

“Right,” Mokou said. “So, I’ve been around, I’ve seen and done a lot of things, and I’ve learned to recognize certain things as well.”

“Things like what?” Haruna asked.

Mokou frowned. “Now, I only got a short look at them, but it was enough that I’d bet every single one of my remaining centuries that those kids found…something in the bone grove, something that left its mark on them.”

“What is the bone grove?” Shion asked. “Do you even know anything about it?”

Mokou shook her head. “Never even heard of it until now, which bothers me. I mean, sure, I’ve never really been the one to go digging up any of Gensokyo’s endless mysteries, but something that big really sounds like something I should have at least heard of. The spiders said that it’s a place that nobody goes to, that everyone in the forest just avoids and doesn’t talk about. Can’t say that I blame them.”

“The spiders,” Satoko repeated. “That you tortured.”

“Yeah, those are the ones. But anyway, even if I’ve never heard of this particular batch of creepy, it’s clear to me that even though I didn’t find anything specific in it, those kids did. And they took a piece of it with them.”

Satoko swallowed. “What is that even supposed to mean? What did it do to them?”

“Exactly what I said. Whatever it is, they got a piece of it inside them, and it’s influencing them somehow.”

Joshua inhaled sharply. “Wait, are you telling me that they’re possessed?”

“Hell if I know,” Mokou said. “Could be, but I don’t think so. They seemed mostly normal until I tried to talk to them about the bone grove, which is when they got weirdly hostile. And they didn’t freak out until I touched them. So I’m thinking that it’s just, you know, influencing them.”

“Is it dangerous?” Shion asked.

“Undoubtedly,” Mokou said with a nod.

Everyone fell silent as they all digested her answer. Then Shion said, “So, what do we do about it?”

Mokou thought on that. “In the long term? Not sure. But for now, keep them together in the sick room and away from the rest of the kids. Don’t let anyone go in there, and don’t let them leave, not until we learn more about what it is and what it’s doing to them.”

“No!” Satoko cried. “Are you out of your mind? I’m not going to make them prisoners in their own home!”

Mokou had been expecting that kind of reaction, and while it was understandable, this wasn’t the time to err on the side of kindness. “Would you rather one of the other kids end up dead? We already lost Eiko. You wanna risk someone else?”

“What about the funeral?” Haruhi said softly. “We put off laying Eiko to rest so they could be there. Haruko and Hayate were her friends. Are we going to keep them locked up during that?”

“Probably.”

“No,” Satoko repeated. “Absolutely not. Mokou, you go too far!”

Mokou gave a nonchalant shrug with one shoulder. “Someone has to.”

“She’s right,” Joshua said to her. “Satoko, I mean. This is just cruel. They’re already isolated from the rest of the Human community, and now you want to isolate them further?”

“If I gotta,” Mokou said. “Look, I’m not saying lock them up for life. I’ll go get the Hakurei shrine maiden. She’s an expert in this sort of thing. Hell, I’ll scare up Yukari Yakumo if I have to.”

That got a reaction from the others, almost as much as the reveal about her immortality did. “Yukari Yakumo!” Haruhi gasped. “You know Yukari Yakumo?”

“Not personally,” Mokou said. “But it’s a kind of ‘know people who know her’ sort of thing. Anyway, I’m pretty sure I can scare her down if I have to.”

“If you want to bring her into this, then do so,” Satoko said. “Bring anyone you think can help. But I am not locking them up, and they are not missing the funeral.”

Mokou scowled. “Bad idea, Satoko. When a kid gets sick, we keep them away from the others, don’t we?”

“It’s not the same thing!”

“Satoko, I think she’s right,” Haruna said in a low voice.

Satoko gaped at the older woman. For her part, Haruna merely folded her arms. “If those kids have been touched by something evil, then it’s our responsibility to do what we can to keep everyone safe. I know it sounds cruel, but we’re on a knife’s edge already. We can’t afford to take risks.”

“But that’s what Skinner and Sonozika are doing, isn’t it?” Satoko said. “Saying that we’re infected with evil to keep us isolated from everyone else? How are we any different if we do this?”

“Because number one, they’re just doing it because they’re hateful bigots,” Mokou said. “We actually have proof that something’s wrong. And number two, we intend to help the kids. They’re not.”

Satoko still looked unconvinced. “That’s not good enough, Mokou. After everything they’ve been through, I’m not going to separate them from their friends. I’m not going to treat them like monsters!”

“Satoko, it ain’t forever,” Haruna said, laying a meaty hand on the taller woman’s shoulder. “Mokou knows people that can help, right? Powerful people who specialize in this kind of crap. So we just keep them by themselves as a precaution until these people show up to take a look at things. Then they’ll fix the kids right up, and everything will go back to normal.”

Satoko looked hurt by Haruna’s words. “Haruna, you can’t be taking her side! You’ve helped raise these children even longer than I have! You know how close they are with one another! I mean, Rumia and Kohta have been fighting with Haruko, Hayate, and Eiko for as long as I can remember, and they still risked their lives to save them!”

“Think, Satoko! Think with your head! The safety of the children come first! Of course we’ll do everything we can to ensure that they’re okay, but until then, we need to be smart!”

“But-”

“What if whatever it is takes control of them when they’re asleep?” Mokou demanded. “I’ve seen things like that happen before. What if we wake up to find everyone’s throats slit? Or the house set on fire. Or-”

“Stop, Mokou! Just stop talking!”

Mokou’s gaze was like steel. “You know I’m right.”

“I…” Satoko’s eyes welled up with tears. “Fine then! If you think it’s so important, then fine! But only as long as it takes to get them help, and they are not missing the funeral!”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Mokou said. “We still don’t-”

“They’re going to be there, and that’s final! And speaking of which, seeing how you’re so good with fire, you can handle the cremation. Immediately.”

Mokou sighed. “Fine. And if they must be there, then fine. But at the very least keep them apart from the others.”

Satoko bit her lower lip. “How quickly can you get the Hakurei shrine maiden here?”

“Well, I’d have to find her again,” Mokou said after thinking on it. “But I don’t like the thought of leaving, not after what happened last time. I suppose I could send someone else to look for her.”

“Who?” Joshua said.

…

Tewi Inaba looked down at the list of instructions Mokou had given her, and then up again at the tall Human who had given it to her. “You serious with this?”

“Look, we’ve had enough shit go down here, so I can’t afford to leave them unprotected,” Mokou said. “And I’m a little short in contacts that might actually find her. So yes, I am serious with this.”

“Right,” Tewi sighed. “You know, we haven’t had that crust bitch poke her killjoy ass in our forest ever since you left. It’s been kind of nice. And now you just want us to go looking for her?”

“Tewi,” Mokou said, warning in her tone.

“Fine, fine, I’ll find her,” Tewi said as she held up her palms in defeat. “But you owe me.”

“Put it on my tab,” Mokou said. “I mean, I’ve got nothing but time to settle up.”

…

Me tired.

Until next time, everyone.

#imperfect metamorphosis #touhou #the touhou project #fanfic #rumia #fujiwara no mokou #mokou

[theratsareinspace]

Cigar Smoke and Metal-Karl Heisenberg x Reader

Check out the Masterlist for the complete fic!

Chapter 17

“This is it” You said as the cab pulled to a stop.

Donna thanked the driver in Italian and left the car; you followed after her.

Karl was too busy jamming out to his music to notice that you had both left. You bopped him on the shoulder, and he realized that you had arrived. He paused his music and exited the car, marveling at the castle before you.

“It’s less of a fixer-upper than I thought it would be.” He remarked, putting his earbuds in your knapsack.

“Karl, all the windows I can see are broken in some way… we got a big project on our hands.”

“Nah, I can do this myself. Give me a week.” He rolled up his sleeves. “That’s how long it took to repair my factory and it was worse n’ this is.” He summoned a piece of metal that was laying nearby and balanced on it.  “Bring me my power tools.” He shot off like a rocket, fusing metal to all the holes in the walls and the roof.

You quickly dug through his bag and found his tool box, one of the only things from the village he actually wanted to take with him. Leaving the box on the ground, you and Donna busied yourselves with taking all the bags inside and designating rooms. You chose a room with peeling floral wallpaper and tattered beige curtains on the windows-- a pretty good place to start renovating the inside. You tore down the curtains, letting light flood the room. You set the tattered curtains in the corner and stood back to admire the room. It was spacious, with hardwood floors and an attached bath. The closet was also very large, and it was split into his and hers sides. Well, he only wore like two outfits, max, so maybe you would take just a little of his space…

Once you had gotten all of your outfits situated in the closet, you took a step back to admire your work.

“Buttercup! I’m hungry!” Karl called, entering the room. He had removed his button-up, only wearing his ratty green tank-top. His remarkably toned muscles glistened with sweat, and his hair was tied back into a messy bun.

You had to stop and stare at him for a moment.

He removed his sunglasses. “What, is there something on my face?”

“Muh… greh… bleph…” You were unable to form coherant words.

“Oooh, you see something you like, bumblebee?” He flexed his arm muscles, making you practically drool.

“Well… I, um…” you cleared your throat. “What… what do you want to eat?”

“I don’t know… the only snacks we have in this castle are apple slices and me.” He said with a smirk, putting his hand on his hip.

You rolled your eyes. You turned away, trying to hide the striking blush dusting your cheeks. “We’ll go into town, then. Go shower, I’m not taking a sweaty hobo man to the store.”

“Yes ma’am.” He chuckled and went into the bathroom.

You left to get together a grocery list.

When you returned from asking Donna what she wanted, Heisenberg was sitting in the living room area. He had changed into diesel jeans and a band t-shirt, and his hair was swept into a pony-tail of sorts.

“Ready to go?” He asked, standing up.

“Uhm… uh-huh…” He looked even hotter in regular clothes than he did in his village garb.

“Buttercup, I don’t mind if you drool over me, but do y’ have to do it every time you see me? I know I’m a hunk, but we’re losing daylight.” He teased, ruffling your hair affectionately.

“You’re a moron.  Donna brought back the rental car while you were gone. I’ll drive.” You went downstairs.

He followed. “Why can’t I drive?”

“Because you don’t have a valid driver’s license, and I do.”

“Wait, for Italy?”

“Yes. What did you think Donna and I were doing while you got detained by TSA for six hours?”

“Fair.” He got into the passenger seat.

You turned on the car and set the gps on your phone to go to a local grocery.

“What does gps mean?” He asked, entranced by the map.

“Global positioning system. It has a map of… well, almost the entire world.”

“Woah!”

Heisenberg proceeded to fanboy over every new thing you passed.

“So, you’re telling me that light thingy helps with traffic flow???” He asked, staring at the stoplight in wonder.

“Mhm! Green means go, yellow either means slow down or speed up depending who you ask, and red means stop.” You said, turning into the parking lot of the grocer.

You parked and brought Heisenberg inside.

“You’re the list-master. Tell me what we need, and I’ll drive the cart.”

“Why is there six bags of apples on this list?” He asked, squinting at Donna’s curly handwriting.

“Donna wanted them, I guess. She likes apples.” You went to the produce section and put the bags of apples in the cart.

Karl was in awe yet again. “I’ve never seen so much stuff for sale in one place… what even is a melon baller? Looks like you would use this to scoop out someone’s eyeballs or summin’… woulda been useful in soldat construction…”

“Something we don’t need.” You said with a laugh. “You can’t talk about human experimentation all the time, you’ll get yourself arrested. If you get distracted by random junk all the time, you’ll have to hold onto the cart.”

You made your way through the grocery store. Shopping with Karl was like shopping with a toddler— he begged for every cookie or candy he saw.

“Buttercup, this cheesecake looks amazing. Can we buy it?”

“No.”

“But whyyy?”

“Donna was baking something at home, I’m pretty sure. Besides, sugar isn’t good for you.” You sighed, not knowing how long you’d be able to take that sexy whining voice of his before you broke.

“Why does it taste so good, then?” He asked as you both got in line for the check out.

“I dunno.” You were called to a lane and he loaded the items onto the conveyor belt.

“Okay, there’s somewhere I want to take you.” You said as you got back into the car.

“Where?” He asked.

“It’s a surprise.”

You pulled out of the parking lot and drove a minute until you saw the familiar storefront of the lactose monarch itself.

You pulled through the drive through and ordered two chocolate sundaes.

“What is this?” Karl asked, looking around.

“Shhh. You’ll see.”

You pulled around to the front and got your sundaes, handing one to Karl. You pulled into a parking spot so you could see his face as he ate the first bite.

He looked at it. “Is this that ice cream stuff you were talking about?”

You nodded. “Take a bite, it’ll melt soon.”

He tentatively took a small bite. His eyes lit up.

“Woah!!! This is… this is amazing!!! It’s ingenious!!!”

“Don’t eat it too fast. You’ll get brain freeze.”

You smiled, thinking about how adorable he was when he experienced new things for the first time. You hoped you would be able to see his enthusiasm many more times in the future.

Taglist: @xyinparadise @baphometwolf666 @lost-mother @arlotg @lazuli-leenabride @goddessofwaifus

RPlease send me a message or drop a comment if you would like to be tagged!

#reader insert #resident evil #resident evil viii #resident evil 8 village #resident evil 8 #resident evil village #karl heisenburg x reader #karl heisenberg x reader #karl heisenberg x y/n #karl heisenberg x you #heisenberg #house heisnburg #house heisenberg #karl heisenburg #re8 heisenberg #karl heisenberg

[weekend-conspiracy-theorist]

Spideytorch + Channukah Bc as we all know peter Parker is Jewish

real. iconic. true.

Peter knocked lightly on the window, waving when Ben glanced up, one massive candle held carefully between two rocky fingers. He mouthed “Sorry I’m late,” his mask rolled up over his nose, and Ben rolled his eyes and called something over his shoulder as he continued to set up the Thing sized hanukkiah.

(Peter’d have been willing to bet it had “Made By Reed Richards” stamped on the bottom. There was a smaller one next to it which had the polished, well-loved feel of a family heirloom; Ben probably let someone else put its candles in place every night, too worried about breaking it to do it himself.)

Johnny came jogging into the room a moment later, a great big grin spreading across his face as he threw open the sash to let Peter slip inside. “Hey, Webhead; when you never texted back, I figured you were celebrating with your aunt.”

“I’ve got eight nights,” Peter pointed out, laughing, as he stripped his mask completely. “I figured I could spare one for the FF. Where’s the rest of the gang?”

“Suzie, Stretch, and the kids are off at a family dinner or summin’,” Ben rumbled. “They’re just running a little behind.”

“They are coming then?” Peter accepted the sweater Johnny was shoving at him with a gleeful expression on his face, not paying too much attention to it as he pulled it over his head. “That’s good! Franklin and Val are Jewish on their third parental figure’s side,” he joked. “They should understand their culture and trad–” he broke off, staring at his reflection in the window.

Johnny cackled, phone in hand to snap a number of pictures in rapid succession.

“This is… this is horrendous,” Peter said, blankly. There were actual flashing lights on his sweater. “Why am I wearing this?”

Ben snorted, reaching out to give Peter a clap on the shoulder that had him staggering to the side. “‘S a gift. Can’t turn down a gift, Spidey.”

“These are also gifts,” Johnny insisted, holding out a pair of blue sweatpants that read GET LIT across the ass.

“What do you think I am, a mannequin in the holiday section of Target?”

“Told you he wouldn’t like them,” Sue said, breezing into the room with a veritable armada of force field-levitated grocery bags drifting in her wake. Reed and the kids followed those into the kitchen to unpack them as Sue headed for Ben, stretching up onto her tiptoes to press a quick kiss to his cheek. “We aren’t late?”

“We’d’ve waited.” Ben peered hopefully towards the kitchen. “Do I smell sufganiyot?”

“Johnny didn’t have time to cook today, so we stopped and picked some things up on our way home.” Her grin tilted sideways, that mischievous Storm spark in her eyes as she added, “Ben doesn’t even let sour cream into the house during Hanukkah, Peter; I hope you’re okay with apple sauce on your latkes.”

Peter wordlessly extended a hand to Ben for a high five.

The actual ceremony went quick- with Johnny in the room no one even had to fight with a lighter- but between the food and the gambling and the wine that magically appeared in Sue’s hands the moment the kids had been sent to bed, it wasn’t until one in the morning that Peter started to consider dragging himself away.

“Probably shouldn’t let you drink and websling,” Johnny commented idly, his legs dangling out into nothingness as he watched Peter stroll back and forth along the ledge, his face turned to the light polluted sky and its stubborn handful of stars.

They escaped to the roof an hour ago, leaving a sleeping Reed (literally) curled around a damp eyed Sue, who was getting weepy listening to Ben drunkenly ramble about his Aunt Petunia and her late husband and the holidays they’d used to spend together.

“Who, me?” Peter asked, holding his hands out to his sides and touching his nose with one index finger and then the other, his face screwed up in concentration.

“Yes, you,” Johnny said fondly. “You stuck your tongue out while you were doing that.”

Peter hummed noncommittally, tucking his hands into the pockets of the sweats he was wearing and hunching his shoulders up around his ears. He’d continued to refuse the Hanukkah sweatpants, but he’d eventually accepted a different pair, just to hide the webs. They were Johnny’s, worn and too long and pooling around Peter’s bare ankles.

He turned on his heel to make another pass, and wobbled dangerously–his spider-sense gave a half-hearted blare and Johnny made an aborted move as if to catch him, before Peter righted himself.

“Maybe a cab would be a better idea,” he admitted, carefully climbing down from the ledge, and Johnny huffed.

“You could just stay here.” He rolled his eyes as Peter looked over at him, eyes wide like a deer in the headlights, and pointed out, “You’re a grown adult, Pete; you don’t have a curfew, it’s not a school night, and the couch is–”

“Taken,” Peter blurted. “Reed and Sue and Ben…”

Johnny licked his lips. He wasn’t looking at Peter, staring out across the city instead, and his hair looked like spun silver in the light that spilled dimly across the rooftop from the door they’d left propped open behind them. “Well,” he said carefully.

“I could sleep on the floor,” Peter offered.

“Don’t be dumb. Didn’t I just say we were both adults?”

Peter swallowed heavily; his mouth suddenly felt far too dry for all of the wine he’d had that night. “I think you only said I was an adult,” he pointed out, and Johnny rolled his eyes again, spinning around to climb down from the ledge himself.

“Come to bed, Pete,” he said, catching his wrist with one hand as he passed, and Peter wasn’t so drunk he couldn’t have held his ground if he’d wanted to.

He didn’t, though.

Johnny led the way into the building, his fingers warm warm warm, and Peter hovered awkwardly in the hallway while Johnny picked his way around Ben to drop a kiss to a half-awake Sue’s forehead–it was intimate and sweet, a real sibling moment, and Peter almost slipped off to Johnny’s room on his own. It wasn’t like he didn’t know where it was.

But Johnny looked over at him, flipping the already-dimmed lights off completely, and Peter clung to the reckless courage that was already pretty much burned out of his system by his heightened metabolism.

Johnny didn’t catch his wrist again, just brushed past him in a way that- maybe only in Peter’s imagination- lingered for one long moment. In his room, they undressed uncharacteristically quietly, like they were reluctant to break the wine-induced spell, and then they were lying there unnecessarily close for in that huge, decadent bed, Peter’s arm draped around Johnny’s waist and his nose tucked against the nape of his neck.

Johnny shifted sleepily, mumbling, “Happy Hanukkah, Pete,” just before he drifted off.

#spideytorch #johnny storm #peter parker #fic tag #it's true and you should say it

[ifridiot]

Teachable (Fic)

Word Count: 1136 Fandom: Original Characters Rating: General Audiences  Warnings: No Major Warnings Apply Relationships: Shi Carlton & Elijah of House Usher Characters: Shi Carlton, Elijah of House Usher Additional Tags: none that i can think of Summary: Elijah is in the doghouse with Tonic, she 'volunteers' to work for Shi and he tells her to get back there and apologize.

for @amuseoffirebane

Shi has always suffered from a lack of practical imagination.

Give him five minutes alone and a suspicious noise and he can come up with roughly seven billion paranoid theories as to the source every second. Paranoia has served him well, kept him ahead of the curve, always ready to fight or grab his boys and flee should the need arise. Paranoia got him on his feet and across the garage, muffling the explosion when the place was bombed and sparing his boys damage that the shrapnel might have caused. Paranoia helped him pick marks and steer clear of likely snitches.

Paranoia served. Imagination, however…

Well, there were enough things to worry about that were actually happening, actually feasible. He didn’t need to make up new situations.

So he’s at a dead loss to imagine what having his fierce Bug helping around the garage would be like. Can’t imagine what he’d do with her, where he’d set her up, how he’d teach someone almost as bullheaded as he was. He managed with Dowel, and had given up doing more than teach Gage the very most necessary basics, and they both had the good sense to worry about his temper.

Not that he’d hurt them -- he was Pa’s child in a number of ways, but not in that -- but letting them think he might didn’t bother him.

Lige though, no, she’d never feared him and wouldn’t start anytime soon. She’d seen his temper, and it only heated her own. She was a good bug, perfect for watching over Tonic’s place and keeping the bartender safe, but teachable Shi was certain would never be a word anyone used too liberally with this particular bot.

“Please, Shi, there’s lots I can do!”

She’s dancing around, hopping from foot to foot to foot, the segments of her body moving in a fluid series of swipes as clawed gripping feet scratch against the concrete floor. It’s like listening to a bundle of knives being drawn across the pavement; a sound he knows humes tend to avoid. His customers, by and large, tend to be humes.

“A’righ’, a’righ’ settle yerself,” Shi finally grinds out, making a sweeping motion toward the garage’s interior, away from the ever-broken chain trencher and the car lifts. “Siddown ‘n watch me fer a tick. Tell me why y’ain’t chasin’ Handerson if yer off from helpin’ Tonic.”

“Well…” She draws the word out like a child trying to avoid or distract by annoyance, and She gives her a sharp look as his fingers unfold and slip into the guts of the disassembled lawn aerator he’s been tasked with getting working.

Elijah does a good impression of clueless. Good enough that he knew plenty wrote her off as all strength and no brains. She ain’t dumb, though, no more than he was at so young an age. She’s barely done being a kid, he reckons, and she’s got a temper on her, which he also reckons is normal, given the state of the world.

She waits until he’s got his fingers deep in the machinery, so he’s only half focused on her. It’s cute, in the way a kid trying to be sly is always cute.

“Tonic and me are havin’ a fight. I can’t stay with Handy cuz they’re working today plus you got more space and you said I can always come here and I don’t need extra space ‘cause I can just sleep out here like you --”

“Like hell,” Shi cuts in, fingers going still and then retracting back to a more manageable length. He sees her getting ready to talk back -- deflect, change topic, argue, he doesn't care. He speaks and she at least lets him. “You come runnin’ in here askin’ t’ work fer me, I bring y’ in thinkin’ y’ jes’ mean t’ pass a couple hours. Yer talkin’ like this’s some longterm thing ‘n it ain’t gonna be. Y’ain’t stayin’ here t’ dodge a fight with Tonic, girl.”

She rears up, several sets of legs off the ground, the world’s smartest, angriest centipede. Before the last upgrade, she’d be right about his height, but he’s taller now, lankier. When she tries to draw up further, she wobbles, weaving like snake thinking about striking, and then lowers a little to settle on the next set of feet. “You said there was always a place for me here!”

“And there is!” He grinds back, arms crossing. “When y’ got a legitimate reason fer staying, not jes’ cuz you ‘n Tonic ‘r havin’ a spat.”

“That’s not fair!”

There’s no humes in the garage, and the doors are rolled up to deal with the heat anyway. Shi vents a blast of dark exhaust in a snarling huff, feeling it plume and dissipate around the sides of his face. “Izzit fair you ran off on her when y’know she can’t come after you? Izzit fair y’ use th’ fact she ain’t gonna leave that damn bar t’ end wha’e’er argument th’ two’a you ‘re havin’?”

He’s gotten better at figuring out how she displays emotion and watches a number flit over her. Outrage, irritation, guilt, shame. “She told me to leave!” She argues, but she’s lowered herself back to her usual posture, which is sign enough that she knows she’s got the wrong end of this fight. When Shi scoffs, she shoots him a glare, and then looks quickly away.

“Lemme guess, she said summin like, ‘if yer gonna act li’ that, y’ kin jes’ leave’, yeah?”

Bug huffs and refuses to look at him.

“G’ home, ‘Lige. Make yer manners ‘n say yer sorries. Th’ two a you take care a each other, ain’ that always been th’ way ‘ve it?”

“I wanna stay here ‘n learn how to fix stuff.”

Shi angles his head upwards, like the secret for patience is lurking in the gloomy rafters. “Fix yer deal wi’ Tonic firs’. Come back ano’er day ‘n I’ll teach ya fer a night.”

The way she looks at him, fins down and eyes big but dim, makes him wish he were a kinder bot. He looks back at her, keeps his arms crossed, and nods when she finally turns away. It seems it doesn’t matter how long he knows her, she’s always going to feel like one of his kids, someone he wants to protect, someone he wants to comfort.

But he’s not going to foster any rift between her and Tonic. That partnership helps two of his people, keeps Lige and Tonic both safer than either of them would be on their own. It’s better, he knows, watching her mope her way out and back onto the street before darting off in the direction of the bar, to be the angry bastard in this. He’s a rock, after all, and a rock can’t yield.

#neoma writes #shi carlton #elijah #amuseoffirebane #commissioned

[zeebeebirdy]

Fareeha + Jesse interaction.

A very small blurb of something I was writing about the aftermath of the recall - Fareeha’s point of view talking about Ana’s “death” and her friendship with Jesse. I need to rework a lot of my stuff and I was gonna scrap this bc it doesn’t work with my new plan so here it is, just nonsense!

Fareeha couldn’t wait to see Jesse again. She’d truly missed him, and didn’t realise quite how much until Genji had confirmed the two were on their way to Gibraltar. She could still remember telling him for the first time that she wanted to enlist in the military, and how despite his concern, he had supported her decision. Fareeha saw a side of Jesse no one else in Overwatch got to know - he was the big brother she never got, but always wanted. Only 5 years apart, Jesse took care of her in more ways than he even realised. While Ana trained Fareeha and prepared her for a life of combat, Jesse was the one who snuck her ice cream from the cafeteria after dark or watched scary movies with her under a blanket fort. Even when she was too old to be relying on him for fun, he still dropped whatever he was doing just to spend time with her. On more than one occasion Reyes had scolded him for putting off his Blackwatch duties, but he didn’t care. Fareeha never questioned his loyalty either, and they never had a falling out.

It was only after he left Overwatch that she found out why he had been so kind to her. Seemingly thinking her mother was dead, Fareeha felt utterly alone. She’d gotten the message while in Egypt during a protocol defence mission, and since she was between bases of her camp, she couldn’t stop to mourn for even a second. Her chest fell of all it’s capacity and she was left hollow, but still a fighter she turned her stiff upper lip and marched on. She killed enemies that day, and didn’t dare shed a tear until they had cleared the field of all terrorist activity. Back in the comfort of her cabin, after a long, bumpy drive back to the headquarters, she clenched her fists and grabbed her phone. She called Jesse.

“How did it happen?” She asked. She could hear from the depths of his breaths he’d been crying.

“They didn’t tell you?”

“They said she died in battle. Did no one help her?”

“I wish I knew, sweetpea. I found out this afternoon, and aint nobody giving me more details on the what’s and how’s.” His southern accent was tainted with wretched poisons, and she’d never forget how he groaned trying to stifle another sob. “Are you coming down any time soon?”

“Wish I could, Jess, but there’s been a spike in break-ins lately. I can’t afford to leave my post.” Which was true, but she was also grateful to have been busy. The company of all those Overwatch agents, bickering and falling apart through the tragedy of her mother, she worried she’d explode. “You need to get out.”

“I know. I’m going to. Everything is changing, and I can’t do this no more.”

“Ana loved you, you know that, Jess?”

“Thanks, sweetpea. I sure hope she did. I gotta tell you summin’. Without y’all, I might have gone nuts doing this shit. I aint sure we’ll ever see each other again, ya know, and I got to tell you...ya’ll gave me the family I missed out on. You, sweetpea, are as much my baby sister as Jane ever was, ya hear?”

That was the last time they ever spoke, and it was for the best, but she never forgot his comment. He’d taken Fareeha in her innocence and filled the gap in her life that was ripped away by Overwatch. She knew he had a family, but he never spoke about them. Ana didn’t tell her much about them either, and the most Fareeha ever found out was when Jesse got back the Christmas she begun enrollment to the army after visiting his mother. He’d walked into her room unannounced, and the smile she always had ready for him fell dramatically when she saw the red rims around his eyes. He knew he would never see him family again after that, and Fareeha had suddenly become his only source of comfort from then on. That was the first time he said Jane’s name out loud. Jesse stayed in Fareeha’s room that night even though it was against Overwatch protocol, and in the morning he helped her pack for the army.

#jesse mccree #fareeha amari #pharah amari #overwatch #overwatch fic #writing #general #drabble #bts angst